Road users find new design clearer than old
In tests, a majority of English speaking road users chose colour-differentiated languages in the test typeface design over Ireland’s existing signs, and over UK-style signs as used in Wales.
The new proposal with the Turas test typeface (font), shown left, is designed to preserve the shape of words, an important factor in word recognition at speed, and to resist the negative effects on signs caused by modern headlights. Each letter shape has been optimised for this purpose.
Research findings - with Irish language speakers
Above: Slides from the screen-based test asking users to choose the clearer sign of two on each slide. Designs that were tested included the colour differentiated design using Turas my experimental road sign typeface, Clearview Hwy the new US design, the undifferentiated sign design used in Wales and the current Irish sign design, which uses uppercase English words beneath an inclined ‘italic’ Irish language typeface.
Comparative testing of designs for clarity
Having researched the issues and developed an initial prototype design solution I constructed a simple test showing comparative examples of existing versus alternative signage solutions. This article deals with the results of the Irish language speaking test group.
Read More...Irish as a 'foreign' language
“Italic is sometimes used for secondary information, as in France. I haven’t seen that anywhere else. More often it is a light [weight] beside a regular, or medium roman that is given this job. [See] Schiphol airport and several other airports, such as Reykjavik, Iceland.” Gerard Unger (Reil 2006)
Foreign language faux pas?
Unger’s comment about ‘secondary information’ is incisive, the Irish language appears devalued by setting in Italics. In general typographic use – italics are employed for very specific purposes – most commonly for a use of a foreign language expression.
The use of English on Ireland's signs
All uppercase versus lowercase – readability and practicality
When upper- and mixed-case words occupied the same sign area Forbes and his colleagues found a significant improvement in reading distance with the mixed-case words.” (Garvey 2006)
Above: Illustrates the advantage of upper and lowercase over all uppercase – in terms of word shapes produced. Both words occupy the same sign area.
Read More...The reduced status of Irish – made visible
Reduced status of Irish made visible.
In the context of the government’s statement on language, following are examples of how the current road sign design effects the reduced status of Irish relative to English…
The relatively larger size of upper case words…
Above: Illustrates the greater space occupied by the same legend set in all upper case.
A consideration in the light of government’s regulation and aspirations for the Irish language is the fact that words in upper case occupy 40% more area (Jury 2002) and are thereby more prominent than lowercase. While this achieves a level of differentiation with the Irish place name, it is at the expense of the relative prominence of the Irish.
It is hard to see how this can be argued to give equal status to Irish. It certainly is not in keeping with the spirit of the regulation…
Read More...
Old Irish meets modern European
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 of this confusion in the design of the ‘Irish language italic’ in Ireland’s bilingual road signs.
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.Read More...
What's wrong with this sign?
