Clearview (typeface)

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Clearview font.svg
Category Sans-serif
Designer(s) Donald Meeker
James Montalbano
Christopher O'Hara
Martin Pietrucha
Philip Garvey
Foundry Terminal Design Inc.
Clearview sample text
Sample

Clearview, also known as Clearview Hwy, is the name of a humanist sans-serif typeface family for guide signs on roads in the United States. 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). It was once expected to replace the FHWA typefaces in many applications, although newer studies of its effectiveness have called its benefits into question.[1][2]

Testing found Clearview was two to eight percent more legible in daytime and nighttime viewing than the then-dominant Series E (Modified) on overhead signs, particularly benefiting older drivers, with a six percent increase in legibility distance.[3] A design goal of Clearview was the reduction of irradiation effects of retroreflective sign materials.[3] The same reduction in nighttime overglow or haloing that benefits legibility for humans is expected to result in improved recognition rates for computer road sign detection.[4]

History

A Clearview highway sign in Farmington Hills, Michigan, installed in 2005 near the terminus of westbound I-696. Note that numbers within the shields use the traditional FHWA typeface.

The standard FHWA typefaces, developed in the 1940s, were designed to work with a system of highway signs in which almost all words are capitalized. The designers of Clearview sought to create a typeface adapted for mixed-case signage, initially expecting it would be based on an existing European sans-serif typeface.[5] Instead, using a similar weight to the FHWA fonts, a new font was created from scratch. Two key differences are much larger counter spaces, the enclosed spaces in letters like the lower case "e" or "a", and a higher x-height, the relative height of the lower case "x" to the upper case "X". Smaller counter spaces in the FHWA fonts reduced legibility, particularly when the letters glowed from headlight illumination at night. The typeface's general appearance resembles the design of the Transport typeface family, designed by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert in 1957–63 for the British highway sign system.

Official acceptance

Clearview was granted interim approval by the FHWA for use on positive contrast road signs (light legend on dark background, such as white on black, green, blue, brown, purple or red) on September 2, 2004.[6] The FHWA has not granted approval for Clearview to be used on negative-contrast road signs (dark legend on light background, such as black on white, yellow or orange), given its inferior legibility to the existing FHWA typefaces in these applications.[7] Despite this, it is used in negative-contrast applications by some agencies. The FHWA also refused to add Clearview to the 2009 MUTCD, citing lack of testing on Clearview's numerals, symbols, and narrower typefaces.[8] In April 2014, FHWA indicated it expects to rescind Interim Approval to use Clearview.[2]

In Canada, since 2006, Clearview has been adopted as the standard typeface for signs in the province of British Columbia.[9] It is also used for street signs in the city of Toronto.[10]

Clearview has been adopted as the standard typeface for road signs in Indonesia since 2014.[11]

Variants

In addition to its appearance on road signage, a customized version of the ClearviewText typeface was adopted by AT&T for corporate use, including advertising, beginning in 2006.[1] ClearviewText and ClearviewADA are versions of the typeface intended for use in general graphic design and ADA-compliant signage.

An example of the Clearview typeface.

Adoption

United States

Between 20 and 30 states have adopted the use of the typeface as of 2013.[12][13][14] It is not the official font recommended for use by the FHWA, and states must request interim approval from the Federal Highway Administration to use the font.[12]

Canada

The Transportation Association of Canada's MUTCD for Canada allows the use of Clearview, and the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario uses it for positive contrast guide signs.[15] Toronto has been replacing its black-on-white street signs with newer signs that use Clearview since 2004, with exceptions for certain older neighborhoods.[16][17][18]

Indonesia

Ministry of Tranportation passed a regulation in 2014 to introduce new road signs, including new Clearview typeface.[19] This new regulation was intended to meet ASEAN Economic Community standards, starting in 2015.[20] The older road signs are using FHWA Series fonts, had been in use since 1993.[21]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Meeker and Associates / Terminal Design, Inc. ClearviewHWY Research & Design Development. Retrieved on 15 April 2007.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ 74 FR 66740
  9. ↑ http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/publications/Circulars/All/T_Circ/2006/t15-06_v3.pdf
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ http://kemhubri.dephub.go.id/perundangan/images/stories/doc/permen/2014/pm_13_tahun_2014.pdf
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ Ministerial Regulation No. 13/2014 about Traffic Signs. Ministry of Transportation of the Republic of Indonesia. Retrieved 7 February 2015.
  20. ↑ All road signs will be changed to meet ASEAN Standard. SuaraSurabaya. Retrieved 7 February 2015.
  21. ↑ Ministerial Regulation No. 61/1993 about Traffic Signs. Ministry of Transportation of the Republic of Indonesia. Retrieved 7 February 2015.

External links

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