Comments on: Designing the ultimate wayfinding typeface

By: Aaron

Aaron — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:46:46 +0000

Ralf — Could you summarize in a sentence or two what the differences would be (as I’d like to understand)?

My considerations:
Large font at a distance.
People with varying eyesight.
Maximizing readability.
A font without “distractions” or flair to take away from the content.

I don’t put too many words on a slide, but when I do, I like them to be readable.

I’m doing a presentation today for more than 200 people and had been hunting around for something “different.” (Although, it’s much too late for me to be switching fonts, etc. now anyway — but I’d read through your excellent post with great interest).

By: Ralf Herrmann

Ralf Herrmann — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:38:02 +0000

Sure, it’s work in progress.
It’s not a screen font though. There are some similarities in terms of legibility, but making a screen font out of it, would be an entirely different project.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:34:43 +0000

Ralf — are you still planning on making this available? I see that this was posted nearly 2 1/2 years ago — I was interested in trying the font in some presentations to see if it helped with legibility for those who don’t sit as close to the screen.

By: Martijn de Heer

Martijn de Heer — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:31:11 +0000

Amazing! Very nice how you designed it and those little changes but that make a big difference in legibility! Beautiful!

By: Fitoschido

Fitoschido — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 11:37:04 +0000

This typeface would perform excellent for signage in Mexico, where we suffer a mixture of Interstate and Arial (the latter being more common as the time passes).

By: eMPee584

eMPee584 — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 09:14:00 +0000

To put it simple: you actually created the most readable font style i ever witnissed. Now try and get it standardized as an European Norm! Send the International Road Federation (irfnet.org – “Better roads, better world”) a nice set of high-quality example printouts! Don’t stop at this excellent blog post! You can do it Ralf

By: Edina

Edina — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 17:15:47 +0000

A very informative article. This helps me a lot for my campus project. Thank you so much!

By: René

René — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 11:22:37 +0000

The European TERN-font is really a joke. Althought I think Wayfinding is surely better legible than Tiresias Signfont or Transport, I still like DIN and Highway Gothic (in my country: RWS-Ee, RWS-Dd and RWS-Cc) most.

By: Ricardo

Ricardo — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 03:41:43 +0000

I just remembered the article and set out to find the URL, didn’t actually re-read it.. hehe. Nice prank, you’ve got to admit.

But the question about Clearview and Flaminia remains, those are real I’m impressed by the legibility of Clearview, would be interesting to see how it stands against your creation (does it have a name yet?)

By: Toby

Toby — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 17:15:14 +0000

Ralf,

Yes, it’s obviously a spoof. You didn’t find it amusing? Come on… “A team of Russian typographers in the Arctic Circle…”

–Toby

By: Ralf Herrmann

Ralf Herrmann — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 06:19:31 +0000

The Euroface typeface is a joke! And I mean that literally. Everything in this linked text is made up. There is no such typeface that gets more legible with increased speed.
It’s amazing how many people fall for this joke. I even saw it in scientific literature.

By: Ricardo

Ricardo — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 23:20:06 +0000

What are you thoughts on Clearview or the Flaminia Type System? There was also a project called Euroface that took a similar testing approach.

By: Nikolaos Kokkinos

Nikolaos Kokkinos — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:24:43 +0000

Great Post Herr Ralf Herrmann !

By: Quora

Quora — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 17:42:03 +0000

Which typeface is the most pleasant on the eyes?…

Note: Your question should be posted as a follow-up question, not an answer. Generally the change is a good thing, see http://samdoidge.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/font-legibility-clearview-vs-highway-gothic.png – signage type should have big counters,…

By: Craig

Craig — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 05:53:58 +0000

I just finished some preliminary layouts for a billboard, and after scanning through all of the hundreds of fonts on my computer, I selected Trebuchet as the most readable for such a use. Now, looking through your article, I see why, it has many characteristics similar to your font. And I’m pleased to see that my layouts survive the blur test quite well.

Did you do any investigations into the legibility of italics and condensed versions, and are you going to offer them as well?

As has been said many times…well done!