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...Creating and testing design variants
Finding a research-led design solution for Ireland’s dual-language road signs - a brief design journey.
World Tour
I first created many sketch sign layouts using commonly used typefaces which fitted the criteria of high x-height and suitability for signs. These rough tests were created to explore colour differentiation and compare this with other ways of differentiating the languages including weight difference, uppercase and italics.
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Differentiation of languages in sign design
Bilingual ‘time delay’…
Wales’ bilingual solution takes longer to read than a one-language sign (Rutley 1972). This is not surprising, because increased information on a sign increases comprehension time. And the time is increased further, especially for English-speaking drivers, when Welsh is placed above English.
It does suggest the importance of differentiating our Irish place names from the English. In view of the status of the Irish language, how is a level of differentiation best achieved, whilst preserving ‘equal prominence’? 
Above: Welsh/English sign
Read More...Developments in directional road sign design
In the design of signs, in general, and more particularly road signs, international practise has pointed the way…
A reasonable proposition, in improving Ireland’s sign design, is to address the design of the actual type used. It has long been held by type designers that increased x-height is beneficial to typeface designs for signage. Since the 1960s, design for signage typefaces has concentrated on this and other factors of clarity – all notable new designs address x-height. In Ireland, where we’d be replacing the relatively larger uppercase words in English, use of increases x-height would be particularly applicable.
Above: A classic type, Caslon (left), has it’s x-height (height of the lowercase) compared to Transport (centre) and Clearview Hwy, the recent US road sign type. This illustrates the increased x-height of the Transport design, and how this has been surpassed by the Clearview design.
Read More...What's wrong with this sign?
These are signs showing the effects of ‘halation’…
Halation is the effect of headlights hitting a highly reflective material used in modern signs. This causes an overglow, which can make the sign difficult to read, this is particularly challenging for older users.
The origins of our road sign design
Our system as it stands…
The Transport type (UK), used in Irish road signs, is intended for Upper and Lowercase use, and no italic version was designed by its originators. Ireland, however, employs italics for Irish Place names and all uppercase English names. Irish is set above the English.How did we get here?
Ireland adopted the Transport type designed for UK roads by Jock Kinneir, a design lecturer at the Royal College of Art, and Margaret Calvert, his assistant, in the late 1950’s and early 1960s; it has since achieved recognition as something of a design classic and became the model upon which many national road sign schemes are based. There is a good summary of the process at the Design Museum’s website. There’s also a little here around the controversy which surrounded its evolution.“This is a true design success story, a typeface so clear and legible most people don’t realise it has been designed at all” (Greer, 2006)
So, where did it all go wrong? …
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