| Category | Sans-serif |
|---|---|
| Designer(s) | Ted Forbes |
| Foundry | N/A |
| Sample | |
The FHWA Series fonts (often informally referred to as Highway Gothic) are a set of sans-serif typefaces developed by the United States Federal Highway Administration and used for road signage in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Australia, Spain, The Netherlands, Turkey, Brazil and New Zealand. The fonts were created to maximize legibility at a distance and at high speed. Versions known as Highway Gothic or Interstate, which are for sale to the general public, include punctuation marks based on a square shape. However, on signage, the official FHWA Series punctuation is based on a circular shape.
The set consists of seven fonts: "A" (the narrowest), "B", "C", "D", "E", "E(M)" (a modified version of "E" with wider strokes), and "F" (the widest). The fonts originally included only uppercase letters, with the exception of "E(M)", which was used on large expressway and freeway guide signs.
The typefaces are officially defined by the FHWA's Standard Alphabets for Traffic-Control Devices, originally published in 1945 (reprinted 1952). Changes to the specifications were published in 1966, 1977, and 2000. The 2000 specifications differ from earlier versions in the shapes of a few letters and in the inclusion of lowercase letters for all alphabet series.
FHWA Series A, B, C, D, E, and F were developed by the Public Roads Administration (which later became FHWA) during World War II. Draft versions of these typefaces were used in 1942 for signs on the Pentagon road network.[1] In 1949–50, as part of a research program into freeway signing carried out by the California Department of Transportation, Series E Modified was developed from Series E by thickening the stroke width to accommodate button reflectors for ground-mounted signs, while a lowercase alphabet was developed to allow mixed-case legend (consisting initially of Series D and lowercase letters) to be used on externally illuminated overhead signs.[2] The lowercase letters, paired with Series E Modified, later became the basis of a national standard for mixed-case legend on freeway guide signs with the 1958 publication of the AASHTO signing and marking manual for Interstate highways.
Series "A" has been officially discontinued in the U.S., though it continues to be specified for certain signs in New Zealand. In 2004, the FHWA published lowercase letters for all of the typefaces and made changes to the Manual on Uniform Traffic-Control Devices, which allows their use.[3]
Over the next few decades, the new Clearview typeface, also specifically developed for use on traffic signs, is expected to replace the FHWA series on some new signage.[4]
Tobias Frere-Jones designed the typeface Interstate, based on the FHWA series, during the 1990s.[4]
Typically, one- or two-digit Interstate, U.S. Highway, and U.S. state route signs use the Series D font for the numbers, while signs with three or more digits use either a narrower font (Series B or C) or have smaller numbers in the Series D font. Series F is most commonly used on U.S. speed limit signs, although older signs often use narrower fonts. Signs that show the names of streets usually feature white Series A, B, C or D letters (which may either have all capital letters or a combination of capital and lower-case letters) on a green background (which can also be substituted for other colors, such as blue or red).
By the mid-1990s the FHWA series of typefaces was used as a source of inspiration for a multi-weight print typeface designed by Tobias Frere-Jones of Font Bureau. Frere-Jones made accommodations for smaller print reproduction and Font Bureau released the face under the name Interstate. It has been adopted by many companies for branding; for example, NBC used it for NBC Sports graphics packages from 1997 to 2006, and TV Guide uses the typeface on its cover. Also, the Weather Channel utilized this typeface extensively, both on its weather maps and for its local forecasts. The logo of the premium cable channel Epix also uses a lowercase version of this typeface. The New York Mets use this typeface at Citi Field.
The FHWA typefaces are also used on road signs in Canada, Peru (under different series labels), Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and other countries. Still others, including Mexico, use typefaces that are either derived directly from the FHWA series or very similar in appearance.
In mainland China, the font has been adopted for use in signs on new Chinese national expressways, beginning with the Jingjintang Expressway, which uses the font for the first 17 kilometers in Beijing. In Taiwan, the FHWA series of typefaces are also used on English text.
In the United Kingdom, the font has been adopted for signage by companies such as supermarket Sainsbury's and railway company c2c.
FHWA Series B
FHWA Series C
FHWA Series D
FHWA Series E
FHWA Series F