There is always ClearviewOne for text and display

http://www.terminaldesign.com/retail_specimen.php?ID=1001&viewFam=1

and ClearviewHwy for roadsigns:

http://www.terminaldesign.com/retail_specimen.php?ID=1129&viewFam=1

ANd although not yet posted I have a set of 20 ClearviewADA fonts that meet all requirements of ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) for interior signage.

James

-I guess those banner ads aren't working

"-I guess those banner ads aren't working"

well, they are, actually. your typeface was the first thing i considered, but 200$ is a bit more than i can spend on a school project :/

It's a beautiful typeface though!

What is the school project. You say a safety product, could you provide more details?

I don't suspect that in your circumstances legibility would have too much to do with choice of typeface.

Legibility only becomes an issue in extremely adverse reading conditions, such as highway signage, very small packaging information, or bad printing conditions such as newsprint.

Otherwise, it's like saying which plays a clearer tune, the piano or the guitar?

> Legibility only becomes an issue in extremely adverse reading conditions

This does include imperfect eyesight as well, though - not a very uncommon issue.

And if you factor in reading duration (probably not an issue here however), the smallest typographic features become highly relevant.

hhp

Hey, stop blaming the font!
What would be of more use for legibility would be a "shizzolator" that rewrote text to avoid visually ambiguous/difficult words.

For instance, Clearview has the commonplace "modern/modem" problem with the "r-n" combination. A "legibilizer" would replace words containing "r-n" with alternates, eg "contemporary" or "up-to-date" for "modern". It would also vary the length of adjacent words, and prefer words with extenders over those that don't. That would be bouma-bastic, Hrant, eh?

Hey, stop believing the WRBWWRM hogwash!

But the divergence mechanism you describe would indeed be very effective, although computationally very heavy: you wouldn't just replace "rn" combos with something that looks less like an "m"* (you could do that just with OpenType), you'd need some serious code: first build a "conflict network" for the entire lexicon of a language (using "confusion values" assigned to different letter sequences), and then pairwise-diverge all boumas beyond a certain threshold.

* Like maybe use an original-Cheltenham-style ascending "r".

hhp

WRBWWRM?

>* Like maybe use an original-Cheltenham-style ascending "r".

Not the first choice.

1) a more pronounced, longer ear that curls down
2) a wider "r", so that the space between the three vertical stems in "rn" is uneven

>> WRBWWRM?

We read best what we read most....

from Rudy and Zuzana

In Manhattan here they replaced the crossing signs that use to say walk, don't walk with a big red hand and a symbol of a person walking. Maybe the safety instructions could be communicated easier using symbols. I think they made the sign change here because of the increasing amount of non english speaking who live here.

Not just Manhattan Daniel. Those signs have made it all the way over to Brooklyn, as well.

> a more pronounced, longer ear that curls down

The danger there of course is that you're moving closer to an "n".
The x-height region of the Latin alphabet is already over-used and closed in on itself.

Plus you're making the "r" wider (see #1 below).

> a wider "r", so that the space between the three vertical stems in "rn" is uneven

And there you have three issues:
1) Word width is a key determinant of bouma resolution, and having divergence in letter widths (as in narrow "r" versus wide "n") helps a lot.
2) You could just use a kerning pair to achieve a similar (if lower quality) effect.
3) The gap at the lower-right of the "r" (especially in a sans design) might get too close to a word space.

The great thing about an ascending "r" is that the space between the x-line and the ascender height is very poorly used in the Latin alphabet, and having a modestly rising beak on the "r" would diverge boumas wonderfully. In the same way, it would be great of the "e" had a modest descender.

hhp

> We read best what we read most....
> from Rudy and Zuzana

Eric Gill said that almost 60 years before them.
And he wasn't talking about desconstruction or
post-structuralism at all

James its good to Brooklyn, maybe its a city wide project. I think those signs are super clear,bright and no words.

As opposed to an ascending r, there are quite a lot of examples of a decending r in Caroline scripts (as well as decending x). It actually works quite well, but getting the highway engineers to go for it would have taken another 500 years.

The big eared, wider "r" doesn't get confused with "n" -- see top examples.

However, it does introduce a big negative space in combinations such as r-t and r-v. So if you put it into a typeface, then other characters also have to be given extra negative space, so it doesn't stand out too much. That's what I did in Preface, with the wide, open-sided "a" and "t," and "i" with serif.

A consequence of more open-sided characters is that the space between words becomes less distinct, which may or may not be a problem.

> The big eared, wider "r" doesn't get confused with "n"

When you have many seconds to deliberate, of course not.
But in actual reading, a difference of half of a stem (not to mention the less relevant lower half) gets very easily lost, especially when it's in the x-height region.

If you confuse deliberation with immersion, then notCaslon could be a superb book face!

hhp

Svenni, I'd also humbly suggest you consider legibilty through the entire process. The legibilty of the font has to be balanced with other things like the quality of the paper and dot gain (if we're talking about printed instructions). The most legible font could be foiled by dropping the ball later in the process. I had some very smart safety instructions for a pleasurecraft that were laminated since it's likely you'd need to refer to them while on the water.

But in actual reading, a difference of half of a stem (not to mention the less relevant lower half) gets very easily lost, especially when it's in the x-height region.

Prove it.

It seems to me that determining an optimal norm for the shape of a lowercase r is one of those rare things that could actually be relibaly informed by empirical study. Most reading studies try to determine too much, but if one focused solely on problems of word recognition involving different forms of the letter r, one might actually be able to draw a useful conclusion.

> Prove it.

Pay me to. :-)

> determining an optimal norm for the shape of a lowercase r is one of those
> rare things that could actually be relibaly informed by empirical study.

Indeed. Although the danger is that the more focused a study the more it relies on assumptions in order to extrapolate to the big picture. Field research that's broad is harder to extract practical usefulness from, but it gives bigger clues. I guess it's a matter of gradually improving focus, in terms of what level of specificity we really need most at the moment.

Anyway, more importantly:
Lacking empirical proof, we shouldn't just wring our hands and pray to dark gods. We should use what we do know, for example that the lower right half of an "r" seen in the middle of a word in the parafovea is nearly irrelevant, come on.

hhp

This is turning interesting, James why do you
consider Clearview as very readable?

I have retarded the writing of my thesis project
because of some academic issues. I am planning to
do it about Spanish Linguistics for Type Design
Improvement, mainly on the readability area for
long texts.

I have been doing some light reading on related
areas and would like to confirm my understanding
of the topic (raised mainly in suppositions) and
ask for some guidance.

Ok, as far as I understand and parting from the
Javal fndings* reading efficiency is related
mainly to the hability of the reader to predict
the sense of the text as this determines where
are the eyes going to be fixated on the next
saccades for the sake of revealing information
for comprehension. This implies a knowledge of
the language, of it�s use and lots of practice
because reades who can predict the best need
less saccades and effort to read a text.

So I�m guessing that the way a type design can
improve readability is aiding the eye navigation
trough the text by facilitating the
discrimination of the shapes (bouma?) of the key
elements for its decypheration based on the
syntax and morphology of the language. Maybe too
by facilitating fixations in key areas (if there
is a way to achieve this). All of this having to
do with the frequency and relevance of letter
combinations in syntactic units.

There are many intervening factors in this
process, some very relevant such as the redaction
influence on the text decypherability, the
reader�s experience and intentions toward the
text and the deepness of the reading.

Now, I have read (and verifyed) that the layout
design and type setting mostly improves
readability more than the type itself. Still good
type is needed because better types can profit
the text more by the way they are used.
____________________________

I intend to seek type use and design criterias
for spanish appart from the kerning pairs and
accentuation based on the supposition that the
relation between a languaje notation, structure
an morphology can be used to improve readability.

So do I have some clues or are totally lost?
Is this feasible or is languaje not so
influential?


*
http://www.readingonline.org/research/eyemove.html

Hugo I copied the quote from these forums:

"Legibility, in practice, amounts simply to what one is accustomed to." - Eric Gill - Essay on Typography, p.44

Not that I fully agree with this, but it�s a good quote to have handy.

I for one think you're on the right track.

> the way a type design can improve readability is aiding the eye navigation
> trough the text by facilitating the discrimination of the shapes (bouma?) of
> the key elements for its decypheration based on the syntax and morphology
> of the language.

Yes, but at the type design level (as opposed to writing custom software to dynamically optimize live text or something), you still have to address the individual letterforms. What you can do is map the entire lexicon of Spanish and find the sequences of letters that tend to get confused most, and diverge their constituent letters in key ways. This is not an easy task. For one thing, it requires grammatical sensitivity to work really well.

BTW, don't focus on Javal's specifics too much: he was a stellar pioneer, but for that reason it was too early for him to be very exact about the details of readability.

--

BTW, one can't doubt that Clearview works very well for the intended purpose: highway signage. But to me "readability" refers most to long passages of text (like a book), and just the fact that Clearview is a sans would make it not extremely readable, even though I think it's a highly legible, handsome design.

hhp

H�ctor,

Yes I agree. That statement sounds a bit
generalist for me, but it also opens our
minds for different points of view (maybe
towards cultural/social aspects).

Gill's book is one of my favorites.

hC

Readability is greatly overestimated.

Such trivia is so easily dismissed simply by viewing said text through tumblers of wine. If you still can't read it, pour another glass and make something up. You have two distinct choices, drink from them, or wear them. Glasses I mean. That's what happened to me.

What a great reminder of why I always circumambulate squandering moments with tattooed Manhattoes and bearded typographers wearing skirts during my Pythagorean transmigration of the universe.

Friends, think harmonics and you think like the gods.

One reads best what one wants to read most. For me "ugly" would not one of them. But be my guest.

If you are so concerned about the r m confusion buy this. . .

http://www.lanstontype.com/Bodoni26.html

You will never be confused again. But If you are, you just know who to ask.

Hugo,

What book?

If
I
set
any
type
like
this.
Ordidtheoppositeandsettypelikethis.
Would it matter what the letterforms looked like. The use of typography for instructions is less important than the writing of the instructions.

"DANGER" Taking a shower with you're hair dryer on and in the tub will make you feel really, really bad.

Keep the measure short, increase the leading
and many typefaces would be acceptable,
it is not just the font which determines legibility.

> The use of typography for instructions is less important than the writing of the instructions.

But it's a matter of context: We don't write the content, we make the fonts, and use them - so our concern is that "micro" level.

Feeding the hungry is more important than entertaining the rich, does that mean we should stop doing graphic design? Well, maybe.

hhp

One reads best what one *wants* to read most.
Instruction manuals get read when the thing won't work. (Of course, it helps if it isn�t set in notCaslon)

Right, back to the rn vs. m discussion. Here is a sampling from one of my recent projects, intended for long text settings:



I�m curious to hear feedback about this kind of r. I chose it because I thought it solved many of the discussed problems at one go:*

1. The low join helps with color.
2. The horizontal terminal pushes the text along, allows for a narrow
letter and helps distinguish the rn combo from the m.
3. Wide foot serif adds balance and helps color.

Addmittedly, serifs give you more options to solve the r issue. At any rate, also note the Jenson influenced stair-step m. I hadn't thought of it, but that might also aid in distinguishing the two. That Jenson sure had his act together.

*I also chose it after revisiting this resource. Nick, they seem to feel quite the contrary to your solution.

This is thought provoking. Thanks.

Randy

it seems like i kind of missed my own party :|...

we are designing and marketing a new kind of fire extinguisher.

the legibility is needed because people need to be able to read the user guide on the device as quick as possible, in badly lit, possibly smoky conditions.

The instructions should be very simply written, possibly with informative illustatrations for use. I hope a fire extinguisher has a small set of instructions.

I mean this only half-jokingly but you could add a small LED to light up the instructions when you remove the safety pin.

Hi Sveinbj�rn,

it seems like i kind of missed my own party
:-) Yeah, there�s this nasty habit around here of taking someones question and having a long stream of consiousness discussion without input from the original poster. Please forgive us.

I should think focusing your attention on the instructive illustrations is priority number one. Secondly, the type (if any) should very, very short and perhaps at a larger point size 12 +. Since this is a school project, and funds are limited you might use something as ordinary as Myriad. Legible, with nice open counters. Likely you have it.

Everyone wants to claim legibility to market their fonts. While there are some fonts that are in fact easier to read than others, if you find yourself in need of a fire extinguisher, chances are you grab the thing, aim, squeeze the handle, realize you need to take out the pin, pull the pin, and start shooting foam wildly. Chances are low, but you might take time to look at the little pictures, but you probably wouldn't read the written instructions.

Myriad. Gill. Meta. Frutiger. These will work and are likely available.

Randy

I should think focusing your attention on the instructive illustrations is priority number one.

I'd be burned to death trying to interpret the illustrations. Diagrams and illustrations are necessary because not everyone can read, or read the language in question, but I really can't believe that getting information from illustrations is faster than from clearly worded text. I think the world's best fire extinguisher would have brightly coloured parts and instructions that read:

Remove green pin.
Point yellow nozzle at fire.
Squeeze blue handle.

Or just "Remove green pin to use".
I think only Patrick (Spongebob's friend) would have trouble with that.
Otherwise we'd need "Do not stab self" emblazoned on kitchen knives.

hhp

OK, I'll get back to the original topic.

A monospaced typeface would be better for a short instructional phrase.

That would remove the ambiguity that occurs in combinations like "rn=m" and "cl=d," especially in faces like Myriad, which is not a very "legible" typeface.

Hmm. I always thought myriad pretty legible. In this test, it�s outclassed by the monospace. It�d be pretty hard to confuse the monospaced m with the rn combo. Point taken. Not very pretty, but if you're dying in a fire, who cares about pretty?

Also note, we're comparing serifs to sans. Serifs have more visual clues in this particular test, monospaced or not.

I'm here to learn too. So if serifs seem to help with this particular problem, why is most highway signage sanserif, most wayfinding type sans? or at least shouldn't they have beak on the r and c?

I'd be burned to death trying to interpret the illustrations.
John I think we are in agreement that whatever type there is needs to be super compact. Pull green pin. Is not likely to be confused when set in myriad, courier, helvetica, base 12 small caps. ok, base 12 might not be the best. Particularly if it�s large. At that length and size, many things could work.

Randy

> why is most highway signage sanserif

Part of it is cultural, but there's also the difference between legibility and readability, in terms of the reader having time to decipher a short word in the fovea (by compiling the letters, which have to be highly decipherable in adverse conditions of weather and lighting) versus immersive reading. Sans forms are more decipherable during deliberation. And note for example that highway signage is loosely spaced, while that's anathema in a book.

BTW, one practical consideration for setting text on a fire extinguisher is that it's on a narrow cylinder, so you want a narrow font (unless you set the text along the length, which might however momentality confuse people), since you don't please having to twist the thing back-and-forth to read lines.

hhp

> why is most highway signage sanserif

The simpler and more realistic answer to this question is that, at least in the US, highway signage comes down from both sign painting and an engineering template lettering. Sans Serif glyphs are easier to paint, and to render via a template.. In the case of Standard Highway Alphabet Series B,C,D,E, Emod, these were derived from what is essentially Leroy lettering, with some of the round terminals squared off.

ClearviewHwy is a sans because it would have been impossible to get highway engineers to consider a serif, hell, it was almost impossible to get them to consider ClearviewHwy at all.

What we really need is type that knows when it's being read, and by whom, and can respond accordingly. If the lights are out, it will even talk to you.

We're a little bit along the way with the preferences users apply to web pages (as well as Text Zoom).

LettError's Twin font, with the selection of glyph alternates being database-driven, is another step forward.

Even without a dynamic interface, there are options, and could be more. Shania's latest album was recorded in Country, Pop, and Dance (europe only) mixes, color-coded. Many books come in large-print options. Harry Potter came with alternate adult and child covers, but the guts were the same. On-demand publishing should be able to offer readers a choice of settings. "Would you like that in Bembo or Times, or, for the really adventurous, perhaps a sans serif?"

Hrant, most of the fire extingushers I've seen here have a tag attached with the instructions on the tag. As for symbols, English is a second language for most people in Manhattan. I can't travel a block and not hear someone talking in something I don't know. Its just as important for non-english speaking people to understand how to operate the extingusher. If you didn't use graphics you'd have to have the instructions in at least 5 languages. You should see MTA posters that try to explain stuff in 5 languages, its a visual nightmare.

You have a point about including a visual explanation.
But I don't get how a tag is not a Very Bad Idea...

BTW, Lego manuals have a standard warning text... in 29 languages! In six scripts!
Great source for setting comparative sample text in languages you don't know.

hhp

Hrant, its like the tag on a bed its illegal to remove. There is another reason, the tag has the date of when the extingusher was last recharged. It would be bad to have the thing and not have it work because someone didn't get it recharged. I guess the chemicals that create the foam only last so long.

Wow 29 languages

I could see the fire extingusher now "Where is the Sanscript instructions"

> its illegal to remove.

Oh, OK - that totally makes it tamper-proof! :-)
BTW, I wonder: since mattress tags can be legally removed by the consumer, does that mean fire extinguisher tags can be legally removed by somebody being burned alive? ;-)

Seriously:
Have a tag for the "freshness", sure, but the usage instructions shouldn't be so easily detachable.

hhp

I'd think the best "instructions" on a fire extinguisher would be a big, fluorescent numeral "1" on the pin and "2" on the trigger. Granted, this might be a problem for people whose languages don't use Arabic numerals, but most of the world at least recognizes them.

Hrant, I didn't have you pegged as a Spongebob fan.

Well, not a really huge one.
Beavis & Butthead though will probably never be matched in my book.

hhp

He said bouma, huhuhuhuh

Remove green pin.
Point yellow nozzle at fire.
Squeeze blue handle.

"Are you suggesting we eliminate colour blindness from the gene pool of survivors?"

John: Too much Darwin for you!

Gerald: An Essay on Typography