Clearview (typeface)

"Clearview Hwy" redirects here. For the expressway, see Clearview Expressway.
Clearview
CategorySans-serif
Designer(s)Donald Meeker[1]
James Montalbano[1]
Christopher O'Hara[1]
Harriet Spear[1]
FoundryTerminal Design Inc.
LicenseProprietary
Clearview sample text
Sample

Clearview, also known as Clearview Hwy, is the name of a humanist sans-serif typeface family for guide signs used on roads in the United States, Canada, Indonesia, the Philippines, Israel, Brazil and Sri Lanka. It was developed by independent researchers with the help of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute and the Pennsylvania Transportation Institute, under the supervision of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). It was once expected to replace the FHWA typefaces in many applications, although newer studies of its effectiveness have called its benefits into question.[1][2]

Initial testing indicated that Clearview was 2 to 8 percent more legible in both day- and night-time viewing than the then-dominant Series E (Modified) on overhead signs, particularly benefiting older drivers, with a 6 percent increase in legibility distance.[3] A design goal of Clearview was the reduction of irradiation effects of retroreflective sign materials.[3] Reduced nighttime overglow or haloing was expected also to improve recognition rates for computer road sign detection.[4] However, these tests also compared new signs in Clearview to existing, weathered signs in the existing Highway Gothic font.[5] The new font's apparent legibility "was more due to the fact that older, worn signs were being replaced with nice, fresh, clean signs which were, naturally, more legible." Better testing also revealed that legibility was worse for negative contrast signs (dark lettering on light backgrounds) such as on speed limit and yellow warning signs.[5]

  1. ^ a b c d e Yaffa, Joshua (August 12, 2007). "The Road to Clarity". The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved June 5, 2009.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Grays Harbor Denial was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ a b Castro, Candida; Horberry, Tim (14 April 2004). The Human Factors of Transport Signs. CRC Press. p. 126. ISBN 978-0-203-45741-2. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
  4. ^ Li, Li; Wang, Fei-Yue (24 November 2007). Advanced Motion Control and Sensing for Intelligent Vehicles. Springer. p. 375. ISBN 978-0-387-44409-3. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
  5. ^ a b "The feds are killing off Clearview, the new highway sign font". The Verge. 4 February 2016. Retrieved 2016-02-05.