I was hoping for your help with something.

[secretasianman@types.pl]

@michaelgemar @scruss @mwichary while the official ones roll and sit around

[linuxandyarn@hachyderm.io]

@grmon @mwichary I'm just learning about this today. When I sharpied the numbers on our recycling bins, I made the numbers look like Gill Sans because we'd seen a couple episodes of The Prisoner not long before.

I'll have to remake those.

[bmk@mastodon.online]

@mwichary
About Dutch license plates:
https://kentekenkennis.nl/home

[regordane@mastodon.me.uk]

@mwichary

Transport (as a typeface) is familiar to anyone who drives in the UK. It works brilliantly for road-signs, for which it was specifically designed.

Whichever font you use, for legibility purposes, do not use all caps. It astonishes me that road signs in many countries break this basic rule

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_(typeface)

[adamrice@c.im]

@raphv @mwichary I was going to suggest this. It seems that it’s not a single typeface but a very distinct style. In the USA, Trader Joe’s uses a version of it for their signage.

[floy@mystical.garden]

@mwichary especially the lowercase i of the head font is somewhat distinctive

[mwichary@mastodon.online]

@aschmitz That’s interesting since I live here, but didn’t notice it? Do you have a go to example or two?

[kallekn@mastodonsweden.se]

@mwichary I remember wondering if the sign had been there since before the war, but that hardly seems possible.

[mwichary@mastodon.online]

@floy Thsnks!!!

[mariejulien@mastodon.social]

@mwichary I don't know, i suppose that's just "yet another font" for people. We have also the Roissy font by Frutiger (for… well the Roissy Charles de Gaulle Paris airport )

[adamrice@c.im]

@mwichary There aren’t as many typefaces for Japanese as there are for the Latin alphabet, for obvious reasons, but there is of course a strong tradition of hand-lettering. There’s one particular lettering style called futomoji (literally “fat letters”) that traditionally is only used on sumo posters. Here’s an example of a sumo rankings table: https://www.kosho.or.jp/upload/save_image/26020250/20210924170531519305_30fd1f9fe4a0b34c207b0216c368c01e.jpg

[grwster@mastodon.social]

@mwichary These old Yosemite trail signs cut out of steel are pretty distinctive. They're maybe found in other older US National Parks, not sure.

[valentine@flickering.style]

@mwichary
The street name font for the sidewalk tiles in New Orleans.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/street-name-tiles-of-new-orleans

[se_davidobrien@mastodon.scot]

It’s based on Gill Sans, I think, with a bit of tweaking for screens.

It eases readability on the website.

It’s the default font so probably seen by hundreds of millions of people every day.

There’s a serif version too.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/gel/features/introducing-bbc-reith

@mwichary

[mwichary@mastodon.online]

@valentine Thank you!!!

[acb@mastodon.social]

@mwichary I do have a soft spot for the sans used on street signs in Berlin, and particularly the distinctive fz-ligature eszett. Modernism meets topographical history.

[cynthiarose@sfba.social]

@mwichary Rockridge station? That looks like the view from Rockridge

[aschmitz@ostatus.lardbucket.org]

@mwichary I don't have any specific ones that come to mind, but I could swear it was pretty common downtown. Maybe I'm mostly thinking of PSAs on those animated billboards in the Loop? Which would be mostly city-generated, presumably. But I could swear I've seen it on various signs walking around, too. (Mostly because shouty narrowish fonts with oversized ink traps seem to be "in" these days, so maybe I've mentally lumped it in with something else too.)

[valentine@flickering.style]

@mwichary
Famous enough to where a local company makes refrigerator alphabet tile sets.

https://dirtycoast.com/products/new-orleans-street-tiles-magnet-set?srsltid=AfmBOoqg7dfFPNfaajUcE1w5FbJ8nAOQe9M2YgiXvuLIO7a7DEp797Zn

[mwichary@mastodon.online]

@valentine That’s cute!