I’m trying to figure out whether Frutiger is in use as a road-sign font anywhere in the world. I’m under the impression that it’s used in Switzterland, but that the version there (ASTRA-Frutiger?) may have been reworked by the Swiss government. Does anyone know anything about Frutiger being used on Swiss roads, or whether any version of it appears on highway signs anywhere else? If so, what version is currently on those signs?
I can only answer from a practical point of view here (since I live in Switzerland).
The old road signs using another font are being replaced slowly with Frutiger (ASTRA?). I have also spotted Frutiger Condensed on road signs with long town names.
But mostly it’s still the old signs with that no-name font. “VSS” is the name, as I recall from another recent thread (Belgium has the same old road sign font):
http://typophile.com/node/12978
knap
Frutiger Condensed is used extensively in Warsaw, Poland on so called Warsaw City Information System developed in 1995.
http://aquarius.wzks.uj.edu.pl:8080/2004/lha35/towarzystwo.htm
That’s actually quite helpful. Have you noticed which version of Frutiger, exactly, is being used on the new signs in Switzerland?
ASTRA Frutiger is a custom version of Frutiger designed for the Swiss government. I don’t know who designed it. Frutiger gave his blessings, though. The vertical strokes in ASTRA are heavier than in the standard Frutiger, and the letters have been a bit condensed as well.
ASTRA Frutiger’s development was documented in the Fresh Fonts exhibition at the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich in 2004.
If you need more info, I can try to track something down…
Captured from web.archive.org on 6 Oct 2008. view this capture