There are some symbol font locations for certain arrows which may give you some consistency. If you look at some of the pi and symbol encodings in FontLab, you can see some positioning.

http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2190.pdf

the unicode 2190 arrows block

Ah ha, very clever. (thanks!)

But no fair resorting to the appropriate unicode block. :o) (where's the imagination?)

I have noticed in a number of fonts designed for signage, arrows are placed in arbitrary locations, which normally contain glyphs that are very unlikely to be needed on a sign. I'll try the unicode 2190 arrows block and see how it works out but, I had always assumed there was a reason for replacing other glyphes with arrows instead of using the appropriate unicode block.

in my experience, sign shops and many sign designers aren't all that type-savvy, and software they use can be limiting where type is concerned, except when it comes to fancy new ways to distort it. I want to place arrows where they can be found easily on any type pallet or with a simple key stroke combination.

> I want to place arrows where they can be found easily on any type pallet or with a simple key stroke combination.

Perhaps make a symbol font to live alongside the text face.

Cheers, Si

Give them the correct Unicode, and put them in the Ornaments feature for easy access via glyph palette.
That is for typographers who work in InDesign.
But if you are targeting your arrows at signwriters, ask them what they use.

Look at excellent ideas in Skolar by David Březina - http://davi.cz/Typefaces/Skolar/Arrows.html.

SA International publishes the apps that are in use in many sign shops. If you're targeting that market, it may be wise to check the requirements of those applications.

Fine programs that they are (the drawing environment of Flexi could be a successor for those who liked Freehand) they are very expensive and not worth the investment unless you need them to operate the specialized equipment that sign shops use.

Look at excellent ideas in Skolar by David Březina - http://davi.cz/Typefaces/Skolar/Arrows.html

Typotheque uses a similar OpenType replacement in some of their fonts. I also put it in Alright Sans.

The biggest problem with this approach is that it's completely made up (there is no standard and designers don't know it's there).

Generally, I would say that using <- for the leftwards-pointing and -> for the rightwards-pointing arrows is a standard. For the verticals, either |^ or -^ makes sense. It is a matter of mnemonic. It also depends on the scope of arrows the font is going to support. If you want to cover significantly more than the basic four or eight directions and possibly allow for smooth combination and lengthening of the arrows (this is something Skolar does), you need to think hard. E.g. I like the /^ sequence for diagonals, but I could not use it because I wanted to support harps (-/ sequence). Etc.

On the website mentioned above is a cheat sheet in PDF describing what combinations are used. It is by no means a standard, but as far as I know it has the widest coverage around. Best thing to let designers know about these things is to put it in a specimen.

Also, these features are usually placed in stylistic set (any you choose) and/or discretionary ligatures (dlig). The latter is to allow support in Illustrator which did not support stylistic sets in CS–CS3.

Traditionally, w, a, s, and d are up, left, down, and right, respectively. At least for games. But seriously, unicode is your frieeend.