It was, I believe, reasonably common in the past to make very geometric designs to enable ‘draughtsmen’ to reproduce the lettering manually on signs. That way they could use the tools on hand to make consistent letterforms. In a similar way perhaps, DIN resembled the lettering used by architects on drawing slugs, and could be made with compass and rule.

I suspect this s a similar case?

Compliments on the quality of your photographs Ralf, once again!

I think this typeface is quite modern and legible, and also has great character (I especially love the “e”) which many designers would find confronting because it doesn’t conform or derive from the bland commercial fonts fashionable these days. I also love the look of this typeface stencilled on countless village entrance signs in Poland. Even with less than perfect kerning, it is very robust and distinctive and should be treasured.

Compared to the examples of other European road signs, which use boring print typefaces that look like they come from the side of a medicine bottle, the Polish traffic sign typeface has much more aesthetic appeal.

But I saw very first projects and I think the font designed by Ludowic is much better done than original.