The Design of a Signage Typeface | Hacker News Reader

The Design of a Signage Typeface

ilovetypography.com

127 pointsdko22 comments

I find the end result pretty attractive, and it's definitely distinctive - perhaps it could have wider applications than just signage: http://fonts.info/pub/pdf/wayfinding-sans-pro.pdf

I wonder how it looks when rendered at very small sizes on computer screens? It might be surprisingly legible...

That’s not uncommon. Frutiger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frutiger) was designed for the signage in the Charles De Gaulle Airport but was later used everywhere.

The characteristics that make for a good signage font seem to me to be beneficial in many other applications.

Great post. Very interesting work.

My picky question is - why so thin? The 'blurred' examples show the font broadening through the 'blur', which is why thinner fonts work well here, but is there a scientific basis for this? I would assume that this is good for light text on a dark background. For the opposite, I'd assume a thicker font would do better (text would become 'thinner' as your eyes blur?). Also, if there is any damage/weathering of the sign, Id assume a thicker font would cope with this better.

Lettering and the a sign's border are often made out of reflective material.

The blurring will thus occur at night when car's headlamps illuminate the signage.

The typeface 'Transport' used in the UK seems to have solved most of the problems identified in this article. The article notes how good Transport is, but says it is too wide. I wonder if just reducing the spacing on Transport a little would have been a shortcut - the results appear remarkably similar to my eye.

Wikipedia article on Transport: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_%28typeface%29

The market for fonts is nuts. You can buy one style of Wayfinding Sans for $374.50--or all twenty for $374.50.

Sounds like the foundry has an all-or-nothing philosophy of font pricing, even if the marketplace their fonts are found on doesn't quite support it.

To understand this perspective, don't miss the bottom of the House Industries FAQ page:

http://www.houseind.com/fonts/faq/generalfaq

I like the article, but the fat, fixed header is killing an otherwise great design. Making the header absolute (not stick to the top of the window) would leave more vertical screen space for the crisp graphics and typeface.

I agree 100%. Also, the page down key doesn't work correctly anymore: It scrolls too much. For me, the lacking page-down-usability is enough that I would never even consider placing a fixed bar on top or bottom.

While the typography is big and wonderful, it was extremely difficult — nearly impossible, even — to read this on a mobile phone.

Great article.

"Once I even ended up in a holding cell at the border crossing to Norway, because the customs officers just wouldn’t accept that someone would drive all over Europe simply to take photographs of traffic signs."

Would love to hear more about this :)

great blog.. i love how each article has a different layout emphasizing the content.

Nice observation. It's very pleasant to read it all.

Only have just skimmed it, but this is a great blog entry, more of an article really. Slick graphic design as well.

Will have to come back later to re-read.

The PDF specimen linked at the end is also worth a look.

Very inspired by his love and devotion to his craft.

This article is terribly difficult to follow the flow of text. I've never understood the desire of some designers for columns of text on the web. Web pages are infinitely tall. Why would you want to replicate a restriction of old media on a new one? This implementation is proof that it's not a usability win.

Actually worked just fine on my iPad.

Well using Chrome on Ubuntu with a resolution of 1366x768, I really had a problem, reading this post.

The words were cut at the end of a column, so that it was really impossible to follow the article.

for someone stating "I love typography", this usability-problem, kind of seems like anathema to me.

Or am I just the outlier with the wrong screen-resolution?

same here, also Chrome on Ubuntu, different screen resolution.

Text in columns is a really bad idea.

I don't follow how columns is a restriction based on how tall a text is.

Columns are neat because they limit the width of the text, which is easier to read since you don't have to move your eyes as much for each row. It also helps compact the text somewhat (that of course isn't as much of an issue on a web page, but readability is still important).

Since the page in question have relatively short paragraphs splitting them up two columns is quite nice in my eyes. Imagine if there were no columns, that'd mean that the paragraphs was about twice as wide as tall - not that pleasant to read and it wouldn't look as nice. A lot of pages have columns (for menus etc.) on the left and/or right so they have a natural limit on the width for the main text (which is good), this site doesn't and is why the columns are preferable (IMO). If the window is very narrow the site falls back to one column, neat.

Renders fine for me in Windows on Chrome and Firefox but if there are issues for others that's of course bad and can be quite frustrating.

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