Clearview font to be scrubbed from Highway signs
After around 12 years (if not more) of thinking, the government has finally decided to take action on a subject that has been subject to quite some controversy in the recent past: Fonts. The clearview font is the one in consideration in this regard.
Clearview font to be scrubbed:
The Federal Register’s January 25 issue indicated that the Federal Highway Administration has announced that it will cease the authorizing of the use of the clearview font as a typeface for signage. This is indeed a huge step and it is applicable to around 50000 miles of freeway and approximately 4 million miles of roads in the country. Highway gothic, the sanctioned older font, is the one that should be used in every state that’s encompassed by the union.
Clearview as met very warmly by the public and the recipients in 2004 when it was authorized and over 25 states make its use in different road signs. FHWA expresses its concerns in this regard and has worked with many chemists, sociologists and a lot of other experts in the bid to develop better sign solutions to be used in roads. In this regard, they have deemed the sign to have a retro reflective sheeting material surface which doesn’t have a large impact on the typeface but affects the legibility.
This decision has officially been authorized and will take effect from February the 23rd. It’s worth mentioning that the states that have already decided and implemented Clearview will not have to take down their signs. Any future signs though will have to abide.
This whole situation drew a lot of criticism from the designers of the font and they got really frustrated when they heard the news. All things considered, FHWA’s decision looks like it will benefit more and would prove to be the right one.
