FHWA Series fonts
Encyclopedia
The FHWA Series fonts are a set of sans-serif typeface
s developed by the United States
Federal Highway Administration
and used for road signage in the U.S., Canada
, Mexico
, Australia
, Spain
, The Netherlands, Turkey
, Brazil
and New Zealand
. The fonts were created to maximize legibility at a distance and at high speed. Versions known as Highway Gothic or Interstate, which are for sale to the general public, include punctuation marks based on a square shape. However, on signage, the official FHWA Series punctuation is based on a circular shape.
The set consists of seven fonts: "A" (the narrowest), "B", "C", "D", "E", "E(M)" (a modified version of "E" with wider strokes), and "F" (the widest). The fonts originally included only uppercase letters, with the exception of "E(M)", which was used on large expressway and freeway guide signs.
FHWA Series A, B, C, D, E, and F were developed by the Public Roads Administration (which later became FHWA) during World War II. Draft versions of these typefaces were used in 1942 for signs on the Pentagon road network
. In 1949–50, as part of a research program into freeway signing carried out by the California Department of Transportation
, Series E Modified was developed from Series E by thickening the stroke width to accommodate button reflectors
for ground-mounted signs, while a lowercase alphabet was developed to allow mixed-case legend (consisting initially of Series D and lowercase letters) to be used on externally illuminated overhead signs. The lowercase letters, paired with Series E Modified, later became the basis of a national standard for mixed-case legend on freeway guide signs with the 1958 publication of the AASHTO signing and marking manual for Interstate highways.
Series "A" has been officially discontinued in the U.S., though it continues to be specified for certain signs in New Zealand. In 2004, the FHWA published lowercase letters for all of the typefaces and made changes to the Manual on Uniform Traffic-Control Devices
, which allows their use.
Over the next few decades, the new Clearview
typeface, also specifically developed for use on traffic signs, is expected to replace the FHWA series on some new signage.
Tobias Frere-Jones
designed the typeface Interstate
, based on the FHWA series, during the 1990s.
, U.S. Highway
, and U.S. state route signs use the Series D font for the numbers, while signs with three or more digits use either a narrower font (Series B or C) or have smaller numbers in the Series D font. Series F is most commonly used on U.S. speed limit
signs, although older signs often use narrower fonts. Signs that show the names of streets usually feature white Series A, B, C or D letters (which may either have all capital letters or a combination of capital and lower-case letters) on a green background (which can also be substituted for other colors, such as blue or red).
By the mid-1990s the FHWA series of typefaces was used as a source of inspiration for a multi-weight print typeface designed by Tobias Frere-Jones
of Font Bureau. Frere-Jones made accommodations for smaller print reproduction and Font Bureau released the face under the name Interstate
. It has been adopted by many companies for branding; for example, NBC
used it for NBC Sports
graphics packages from 1997 to 2006, and TV Guide
uses the typeface on its cover. Also, the Weather Channel utilized this typeface extensively, both on its weather maps and for its local forecasts. The logo of the premium cable channel Epix also uses a lowercase version of this typeface. The New York Mets
use this typeface at Citi Field.
, Peru
(under different series labels), Australia
, New Zealand
, Indonesia
and other countries. Still others, including Mexico
, use typefaces that are either derived directly from the FHWA series or very similar in appearance.
In mainland China
, the font has been adopted for use in signs on new Chinese national expressways, beginning with the Jingjintang Expressway
, which uses the font for the first 17 kilometers in Beijing
. In Taiwan
, the FHWA series of typefaces are also used on English text.
In the United Kingdom, the font has been adopted for signage by companies such as supermarket Sainsbury's and railway company c2c
.
FHWA Series C
FHWA Series D
FHWA Series E
FHWA Series F
Typeface
In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
s developed by the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Federal Highway Administration
Federal Highway Administration
The Federal Highway Administration is a division of the United States Department of Transportation that specializes in highway transportation. The agency's major activities are grouped into two "programs," the Federal-aid Highway Program and the Federal Lands Highway Program...
and used for road signage in the U.S., Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, The Netherlands, Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
. The fonts were created to maximize legibility at a distance and at high speed. Versions known as Highway Gothic or Interstate, which are for sale to the general public, include punctuation marks based on a square shape. However, on signage, the official FHWA Series punctuation is based on a circular shape.
The set consists of seven fonts: "A" (the narrowest), "B", "C", "D", "E", "E(M)" (a modified version of "E" with wider strokes), and "F" (the widest). The fonts originally included only uppercase letters, with the exception of "E(M)", which was used on large expressway and freeway guide signs.
History
The typefaces are officially defined by the FHWA's Standard Alphabets for Traffic-Control Devices, originally published in 1945 (reprinted 1952). Changes to the specifications were published in 1966, 1977, and 2000. The 2000 specifications differ from earlier versions in the shapes of a few letters and in the inclusion of lowercase letters for all alphabet series.FHWA Series A, B, C, D, E, and F were developed by the Public Roads Administration (which later became FHWA) during World War II. Draft versions of these typefaces were used in 1942 for signs on the Pentagon road network
Pentagon road network
The Pentagon road network is a system of highways, mostly freeways, built by the United States federal government in the early 1940s to serve the Pentagon in northern Virginia. The roads, transferred to the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1964, are now state highways...
. In 1949–50, as part of a research program into freeway signing carried out by the California Department of Transportation
California Department of Transportation
The California Department of Transportation is a government department in the U.S. state of California. Its mission is to improve mobility across the state. It manages the state highway system and is actively involved with public transportation systems throughout the state...
, Series E Modified was developed from Series E by thickening the stroke width to accommodate button reflectors
Button copy
Button copy is a term describing the method of manufacture of older road signs in the United States. Button copy signs contain rows of embedded reflectors outlining the legend of the sign, for better visibility at night...
for ground-mounted signs, while a lowercase alphabet was developed to allow mixed-case legend (consisting initially of Series D and lowercase letters) to be used on externally illuminated overhead signs. The lowercase letters, paired with Series E Modified, later became the basis of a national standard for mixed-case legend on freeway guide signs with the 1958 publication of the AASHTO signing and marking manual for Interstate highways.
Series "A" has been officially discontinued in the U.S., though it continues to be specified for certain signs in New Zealand. In 2004, the FHWA published lowercase letters for all of the typefaces and made changes to the Manual on Uniform Traffic-Control Devices
Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices
The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices is a document issued by the Federal Highway Administration of the United States Department of Transportation to specify the standards by which traffic signs, road surface markings, and signals are designed, installed, and used...
, which allows their use.
Over the next few decades, the new Clearview
Clearview (typeface)
Clearview, also known as Clearview Hwy, is the name of a humanist sans-serif typeface family for guide signs on roads in the United States. It was developed by independent researchers with the help of the Texas Transportation Institute and the Pennsylvania Transportation Institute, under the...
typeface, also specifically developed for use on traffic signs, is expected to replace the FHWA series on some new signage.
Tobias Frere-Jones
Tobias Frere-Jones
Tobias Frere-Jones is a prolific type designer who works in New York City with fellow type designer Jonathan Hoefler at Hoefler & Frere-Jones, a type foundry in lower Manhattan...
designed the typeface Interstate
Interstate (typeface)
Interstate is a digital typeface designed by Tobias Frere-Jones in the period 1993–1999, and licensed by Font Bureau. The typeface is closely related to the FHWA Series fonts, a signage alphabet drawn for the United States Federal Highway Administration in 1949....
, based on the FHWA series, during the 1990s.
United States
Typically, one- or two-digit InterstateInterstate Highway System
The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, , is a network of limited-access roads including freeways, highways, and expressways forming part of the National Highway System of the United States of America...
, U.S. Highway
United States Numbered Highways
The system of United States Numbered Highways is an integrated system of roads and highways in the United States numbered within a nationwide grid...
, and U.S. state route signs use the Series D font for the numbers, while signs with three or more digits use either a narrower font (Series B or C) or have smaller numbers in the Series D font. Series F is most commonly used on U.S. speed limit
Speed limit
Road speed limits are used in most countries to regulate the speed of road vehicles. Speed limits may define maximum , minimum or no speed limit and are normally indicated using a traffic sign...
signs, although older signs often use narrower fonts. Signs that show the names of streets usually feature white Series A, B, C or D letters (which may either have all capital letters or a combination of capital and lower-case letters) on a green background (which can also be substituted for other colors, such as blue or red).
By the mid-1990s the FHWA series of typefaces was used as a source of inspiration for a multi-weight print typeface designed by Tobias Frere-Jones
Tobias Frere-Jones
Tobias Frere-Jones is a prolific type designer who works in New York City with fellow type designer Jonathan Hoefler at Hoefler & Frere-Jones, a type foundry in lower Manhattan...
of Font Bureau. Frere-Jones made accommodations for smaller print reproduction and Font Bureau released the face under the name Interstate
Interstate (typeface)
Interstate is a digital typeface designed by Tobias Frere-Jones in the period 1993–1999, and licensed by Font Bureau. The typeface is closely related to the FHWA Series fonts, a signage alphabet drawn for the United States Federal Highway Administration in 1949....
. It has been adopted by many companies for branding; for example, NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
used it for NBC Sports
NBC Sports
NBC Sports is the sports division of the NBC television network. Formerly "a service of NBC News," it broadcasts a diverse array of programs, including the Olympic Games, the NFL, the NHL, MLS, Notre Dame football, the PGA Tour, the Triple Crown, and the French Open, among others...
graphics packages from 1997 to 2006, and TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
uses the typeface on its cover. Also, the Weather Channel utilized this typeface extensively, both on its weather maps and for its local forecasts. The logo of the premium cable channel Epix also uses a lowercase version of this typeface. The New York Mets
New York Mets
The New York Mets are a professional baseball team based in the borough of Queens in New York City, New York. They belong to Major League Baseball's National League East Division. One of baseball's first expansion teams, the Mets were founded in 1962 to replace New York's departed National League...
use this typeface at Citi Field.
Worldwide
The FHWA typefaces are also used on road signs in CanadaCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
(under different series labels), Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
and other countries. Still others, including Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, use typefaces that are either derived directly from the FHWA series or very similar in appearance.
In mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
, the font has been adopted for use in signs on new Chinese national expressways, beginning with the Jingjintang Expressway
Jingjintang Expressway
Opened in September 1993, the Jingjintang Expressway , also known as the Jingtang Expressway, links Beijing via central Tianjin to the Tanggu District in eastern Tianjin...
, which uses the font for the first 17 kilometers in Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
. In Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, the FHWA series of typefaces are also used on English text.
In the United Kingdom, the font has been adopted for signage by companies such as supermarket Sainsbury's and railway company c2c
C2c
c2c is a British train operating company that is part of the National Express Group. It provides passenger rail services on the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway line from Fenchurch Street railway station in the City of London to east London and the entire length of the northern Thames Gateway...
.
Samples
FHWA Series BFHWA Series C
FHWA Series D
FHWA Series E
FHWA Series F
See also
- Clearview (typeface)Clearview (typeface)Clearview, also known as Clearview Hwy, is the name of a humanist sans-serif typeface family for guide signs on roads in the United States. It was developed by independent researchers with the help of the Texas Transportation Institute and the Pennsylvania Transportation Institute, under the...
, expected to gradually replace the FHWA typefaces over the next few decades - Public signage typefaces
- Typefaces used on North American traffic signs
External links
- Standard Alphabets for Traffic Control Devices from the United States Federal Highway Administration (PDF)
- Sign Typefaces from the Manual of Traffic Signs
Downloadable versions
- roads UK—Fonts for many national road systems, including the FHWA series for the US.
- Road Geek—freeware fonts, created by Mike Adams and based on all of Series B through F, plus additional fonts based on highway signage around the world.
- Public domain fonts used on road signs.
- Interstate available from Monotype Imaging.