Ralf Herrmann:
Wayfinding & Typography

The old Swiss traffic sign font is called SNV (“Schweizerische Normen-Vereinigung”). It is a very geometric typeface with obvious legibility problems.

The main typeface used in Italy is called Alfabeto Normale and is a bolder version of the British Transport alphabet. From its use in Spain it is also known as Carreta Conventional or CCRIGE and it is available as Traffic Type Spain from URW++.

The Netherlands are a special case when it comes to traffic signs…

In France four fonts are currently used. The main fonts are called L1 and L2.

When I first saw a digital version of the Polish traffic typeface, I though I must have gotten a really bad digitization. It had characters which were obviously cut off by mistake …

The official traffic typeface in Germany is called DIN 1451 and has a very long history …

Denmark is very generous with colors. Road sign can be red on white, white on green, blue on white, black on yellow and white on blue. Red (usually reserved for emergency icons) is the main color, because it is the color of the national flag of Denmark.