Letter confusion – old Irish meets modern European…

Inexpert handling of drawing new letters is likely to cause confusion – an uppercase faux Irish ‘A’ (In lowercase style) and a lowercase ‘i’ without a dot are examples. Characters commonly mistaken for each other (Jury 2002) must receive particular attention from the designer of road signs, this is confirmed by (Spencer et al. 1973b). Lowercase ‘a’ and ‘o’ are cited as such problematic letter forms. Even if this re-design of the type were well executed, it is inappropriate to create stylised letter shapes. Unusual letter forms are likely to inhibit readability of place names. Moreover, in common usage Irish is set in contemporary typefaces and this should be reflected in signs.

Above: ‘Saorchrois’ [sic] – ‘ao’ lowercase combination here shows the potential for letter confusion. This sign also illustrates the common inconsistencies in letter spacing. Saorchrois Thoir is set more correctly in an open-spaced setting. Baile na nGaibhne is squeezed to ‘fit’.

Above: The same place name as it would appear in the original Transport type. Note the lowercase a and dotted i. In the alphabet created for Irish language place names several modifications were made to the original Transport type design. Amendments to the letter forms of the italics are perhaps an attempt to co-opt ‘old Irish’ letter forms into the Irish language place names.

Above: Book of Kells, c AD800, excerpt from road sign (the italic shows the redrawn ‘a’ and ‘I’’) and the Transport type contrasted with an uncial. While it is arguable whether there is anything unique to Ireland about the script used (such styles were widespread in Europe), the issue of legibility and modern usage are more pertinent – should a modern road sign system take ‘inspiration’ from historic sources?

In general, any character attributes of road sign typefaces is largely incidental. The role of the designer is to communicate the message with as little perception of the medium as possible. To intentionally add ‘character’ for its own sake is misguided. Margaret Calvert, co-designer of the Transport type, describes the process…

“Style never came into it. You were driving towards the absolute essence. How could we reduce the appearance to make the maximum sense and minimum cost” (Poynor et al. 2004)

Above: The wish to ‘customise’ the type for the Irish language may have been influenced by earlier sign designs. Irish road signs, 1926, Source: Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1926Irishroad_signs.png

It’s possible that the drive to localise the character of the sign type was influenced by earlier Irish sign types which employed a highly-stylised type for the Irish language. This would appear to be more a statement of independence than a functional solution.

Tags: History, Legibility, Design, Bilingual signs, Typographic design