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The Feds' Freeway Font Flip-Flop (citylab.com)
McGruber writes: Citylab has the news that the U.S. Federal Highway Administration is revoking its 2004 approval of the "Clearview" font for road signs. Clearview was made to improve upon its predecessor, a 1940s font called Highway Gothic. Certain letters appeared to pose visibility problems, especially those with tight interstices (or internal spacing)—namely lowercase e, a, and s. At night, any of these reflective letters might appear to be a lowercase o in the glare of headlights. By opening up these letterforms, and mixing lowercase and uppercase styles, Clearview aimed to improve how these reflective highway signs read.
Now, just 12 years later, the FHWA is reversing itself: "After more than a decade of analysis, we learned—among other things—that Clearview actually compromises the legibility of signs in negative-contrast color orientations, such as those with black letters on white or yellow backgrounds like Speed Limit and Warning signs," said Doug Hecox, a FHWA spokesperson, in an email. The FHWA has not yet provided any research on Clearview that disproves the early claims about the font's benefits. But there is at least one factor that clearly distinguishes it from Highway Gothic: cost. Jurisdictions that adopt Clearview must purchase a standard license for type, a one-time charge of between $175 (for one font) and $795 (for the full 13-font typeface family) and up, depending on the number of workstations.
That doesn't seems like a very good use of tax money, for something that can be nondestructively reused once created.
Now, just 12 years later, the FHWA is reversing itself: "After more than a decade of analysis, we learned—among other things—that Clearview actually compromises the legibility of signs in negative-contrast color orientations, such as those with black letters on white or yellow backgrounds like Speed Limit and Warning signs," said Doug Hecox, a FHWA spokesperson, in an email. The FHWA has not yet provided any research on Clearview that disproves the early claims about the font's benefits. But there is at least one factor that clearly distinguishes it from Highway Gothic: cost. Jurisdictions that adopt Clearview must purchase a standard license for type, a one-time charge of between $175 (for one font) and $795 (for the full 13-font typeface family) and up, depending on the number of workstations.
That doesn't seems like a very good use of tax money, for something that can be nondestructively reused once created.
switch to an open source font.
.. and very pro capitalism, etc bla bla.
But ... common ... how can our Federal Highway Administration go about researching and the setting a standard for a font ... and then be so stupid as to not procure rights to that font and then license them to every other agency/company at no cost?
As a republican ... this is the kind of thing I expect my government TO do. I know wikipedia says "It was developed by independent researchers with the help of the Texas Transportation Institute and the Pennsylvania Transportation Institute, under the supervision of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)," why didn't any of these agencies say "So ... we're going to pay you a huge pile of money ... once ... for this font."
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Why is the government licensing a font from a commercial vendor? Wouldn't a more cost effective approach be to have one designed as a work for hire so they own the copyright making it public domahttp://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/02/01/199201/the-feds-freeway-font-flip-flop#in (since the public is paying for it).
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
True, but it's a relatively small amount of money. It's not completely out of whack with what commercial enterprises pay for non-free fonts. And, to be honest, if someone invested in this project thinking "Hmm, if I invest on research into improving something with a direct affect on road safety and transportation efficiency, I'll make money!" that's... not a bad thing. Beats "Hmm, if I invest in research on blowing people up, the government will give me money!" anyway.
Copyright isn't a terrible idea, just one that's abused from time to time. The target audience for this font can easily afford the money they're asking for, and it's a worthy product if the font does what it's designed to do. (Whether that's true is a separate issue from "Should we occasionally pay for fonts?")
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Those prices are down right cheap. some fonts are $1000/per use one billboard is a use, one street sign is a use. But cumulatively it adds up to a whole lot of money for tax payers.
So lets agree there are two dimensions to this argument whether the Clearview font is superior which is the bulk of the article and whether the flame bait trailing paragraph means that we need to fix the economics.
Designing a font is a lot more work than you think if your goal is something legible unlike say Comic Sans. Designers should be compensated. I like to be paid for my work. It lets me eat. But the royalty model is perhaps broken. Alternatively the price is broken... There are many municipal sign shops unlike printers... probably be just Google and Apple licensing fonts for print production in the near future after they take over the remnants of Xerox. So street sign fonts should maybe be $1 to many municipalities while print (dead tree type) fonts should maybe be $2mil per licensee? Or perhaps better the government could have commissioned the font and then provided it to any municipality.
As to the merits of Clearview? I think the font is too light in the default weight. I have no research to back this up just 10yrs of gut experience. It does not exist in weights suitable for street name signs... which makes me leery of suggesting it to my municipality for use. It does have more open vowel glyphs and as such is an improvement over the Highway Gothic, though most people do not read character glyph at a time while driving... they look for word outlines, so perhaps that doesn't matter. Then again my mother slows down to read highway signs because she has trouble with is that an 'e' or an 'o'.
My thoughts? The Obama administration could do worse with its money than running a design a replacement highway font contest. Prize: $100,000, 2nd and 3rd runners up $30,000 and $15,000 but the font must be made available license free within the US at least. Have Google Manage distribution and grant $1,000,000 to PennDOT to test. (Unlike other DOT's PennDot can actually do this work... don't ask me about DOT's in the South wow... just wow...)
Have gnu, will travel.
Per fucking workstation. And this rip-off has been going on for how many years?
Jurisdictions that adopt Clearview must purchase a standard license for type, a one-time charge of between $175 (for one font) and $795 (for the full 13-font typeface family) and up, depending on the number of workstations.
That doesn't seems like a very good use of tax money, for something that can be nondestructively reused once created.
To install a sign:
All costs listed are for a complete sign assembly in place, including all legend, fabricating, transportation, labor, hardware, and painting of posts.
Sign panels:
Regulatory/Warning/Marker: $15 to 18 / sq.ft.
Large Guide Signs: $20 to 25 / sq.ft.
Electronic Variable Message Sign: $50,000 to $150,000 each.
Sign Posts:
U-Channel: $125 to $200 each
Square Tube (Telespar): $10 to $15 per foot
Large Steel Breakaway Posts: $15 to $30 per foot
Cantilever Sign: $15,000 to $20,000 each
Sign Bridge: $30,000 to $60,000 each
Foundations:
Square Tube: $150 - $250 each
Breakaway Post: $250 to $750 each
Cantilever / Bridge: $6,000 - $7,000 each
STOP signs are considered among the most expensive signs. Due to their critical importance in intersection safety, they must be replaced as soon as is reasonably feasible - even if that means driving 300+ miles round trip at 3 AM, at $1.00 per mile for the truck, and $25-$40 per hour overtime for each sign crewperson. Taking this into account, a simple $75 STOP sign suddenly becomes a $500+ item.
Engineering costs with respect to signing are more difficult to define. If a 3 month study results in installation of only 3 signs, it may not be equitable to charge the whole egineering cost to those installations. Normally, engineering costs are treated separately, but if there is a need to take them into account, then a rule of thumb estimate is engineering cost = 10% to 15% of construction cost.
Costs of Traffic Signs
The font was designed for reflective white on green. The legibility studies are invalid for black on yellow.
I guess the font designers should have foreseen this and designed a family of two fonts called "negative" and "positive", but I cannot really fault them for failing to fully appreciate the magnitude of human incompetence.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.