U.S. Highway Administration orders return to vintage typeface

boing
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I had never noticed before that highway sign painters must

l e t t e r s p a c e l o w e r c a s e

which is unforgivable in virtually any other context

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They really should design road signs for universal access:

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The kerning has to be reduced letterspacing has to be increased on freeways due to the Lorenz-Fitzgerald contraction.

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Did anybody notice based on the mileage markers that “Hell”-ertown is located at mile marker 66.6? Hmmmm…

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comic sans baybee

or we could go all Gill Sans like the U.K.:

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Hmmm, I kind of want to start using Highway Gothic for everything just because of the name, sounds like a graphic novel I would have liked when I was 13 or so.

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My only problem with Gill sans is that he was such an appalling person. I can imagine any attempt to use that face in the US would cause a feminist uproar.

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How about Honda? Or a Fraktur?

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And that influences the font usability exactly how?

Let them scream. No outrage lasts forever, just wait it out. Something new to catch the attention of the perpetually-insulted will appear soon anyway.

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Trump 2016!

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So, how many lobbyists does it take to screw in a light bulb?

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Yes, all victims of child abuse die eventually.:unamused:

You do realise you are being the polar opposite of what you complain about, don’t you?

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This is very true. Paragraphs or sentences are tracked/letterspaced. Single words, like the names of cities, should be kerned by the designer on a case by case basis to make sure the letters are spaced properly for distance reading. Digital pairs don’t help in a case like this where they’d need to be manually kerned as needed.

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You just equated feminists with “the perpetually-insulted”. And you did that in response to someone saying that they had knowledge of the “appalling” person behind the name of the font, which gave the font one knock against it to them. You took it from a singular example to a blanket condemnation of an entire group of people. Did you even look up who Eric Gill was? Hint: incest against his daughters is part of his official biography.

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how useful of them to be infantilized like that!