Doug London referred me to this terrific Times article on Clearview, a new typeface approved by the Federal Highway Administration in 2004, and now being rolled out across the US. It replaces what was known as “Highway Gothic”, which was has been in use since the fifties, with a new design based on contemporary signage type. Notable differences: the lower-case “l” is easily distinguished from the “1” or “I”, the lower-case letter height is much higher, and the negative space in the letters is more pronounced. It shares a lot with Erik Spiekermann’s FF Meta which was designed for the German postal service in 1984. Doug spotted the new typeface near Crystal City, VA.

Popularity: 6% [?]

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See Also: Google’s Power Challenge,Shiira & Alternative Browsers,The First Straw,

This entry was posted by Jeffrey Warren on Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 at 8:55 am and is filed under Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.