I’m a mild typography enthusiast, and ever since I read about Clearview in the New York Times two years ago, I’ve been waiting for a chance to see it in the wild. It finally showed up in Cleveland a couple of months ago, and I’m quite impressed with it.
If you’ve noticed that driving on the Interstate highways around Cleveland has been a bit easier of late, this new signage is partially responsible for it. Clearview was specifically designed for use on highways; its increased legibility means you can read the signs faster and earlier than the old signs that use the Highway Gothic font.
In addition to the safety improvements, the font can be used without a corresponding increase in sign size. It indirectly saves lives and money lost to property damage and also directly saves money in production costs.
Here’s a local comparison:
What I’ve noticed most, in addition to the increased height of the lower-case letters, is how the tail on lower-case “l” glyph is almost invisible to a quick glance, yet still manages to distinguish the letter from an upper-case “I”. (Unlike the font in this post). I’ve also noticed how much faster I can read the new signs, so I can keep my eye on the road that much longer.
If you’d like to read up a bit more on the methodology behind this change (and see some better graphics depicting what’s different) I recommend checking out the following:
