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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.
It's not completely out of whack with what commercial enterprises pay for non-free fonts
Except it is totally out of what. Normal fonts are created speculatively and then licensed to interested parties.
This font was practically a work for hire in everything but name, I wouldn't be surprised to hear they were actually paid to create it up front, and then now we still have to license it back, for a font that's standardized accross a nationwide highway network... the purpose for which it was originally commissioned.
WORST case it should be licensed once for the nations highways. Period. If the designer wants to go out and try and license it to Mexico too.. that's fine, but the USA should only have to pay once to use it on any signage anywhere it wants. Forever.