List of public signage typefaces

This is a list of typefaces used for signage in public areas, such as roads and airports.

Typeface	Used by	Notes
Achemine	SNCF, France	Created in 2008 to improve station accessibility.
Alfabeto Normale and Alfabeto Stretto	Italy	Alfabeto Normale ("Normal Alphabet") is a bolder variant of the British Transport typeface.[1] Alfabeto Stretto ("Narrow Alphabet") is a condensed version of Alfabeto Normale, and is used for long names that wouldn't fit otherwise. The typeface Traffic type Spain D,[2] used in Spain, is identical to Alfabeto Normale.
Antique Olive	California Department of Transportation	Some regulatory Signs
Austria	Austria	road typeface
Brusseline	Brussels' public transport company
Calvert	Tyne & Wear Metro, United Kingdom
Caractères	France	Used for road signs in France and in some countries in Africa.
Carretera	General Directorate of Highways in Turkey
Casey	Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation
Clarendon	U.S. National Park Service road signs[3]
Clearview		Developed to replace U.S. FHWA (Federal Highway Administration) typefaces[3]
Deutsche Bahn WLS	Deutsche Bahn (German Railways) station signage[4]	Developed in close reference to Helvetica
DIN 1451	the German transport typeface
Drogowskaz	the Polish transport typeface
Enigmatic		formerly used for road signs in Japan and South Korea.
Esseltub	previously used in Stockholm Metro
Eurostile	California Department of Transportation	Some regulatory Signs
FIP signage typeface	Government of Canada	A modified version of Helvetica Medium used by the Government of Canada[5]
FF Meta	Stockholm Metro, California Department of Transportation, Birmingham Airport	some Mile Marker Signs
FF Fago	ADIF	Used as official font for signage system of all Spanish railway stations owned by the state-owned administrator, ADIF.
Freight Sans	Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru, India
Frutiger	Swiss road signs Across the public transport network of Oslo, Norway Dutch National Railways BAA Airports in the UK,[6] in the National Health Service in England Frankfurt Airport
Amtrak signage[7]
FHWA Series fonts – sometimes called Highway Gothic.[3]	United States	Developed for U.S. road signage, and also used in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, the Netherlands, and New Zealand
Futura BSK	Italian railways[8]
Gill Sans	British Railways until 1965.	Also the official font for all the signage system of the Spanish Government.
Helvetica	New York City Subway system Chicago Transit Authority system Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority system Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority system Madrid Metro	Formerly used in Hong Kong's MTR and Stockholm Metro, has also been used on some Toronto Subway and RT station signage. Less commonly, the typeface has been used on street signs in the United States, most notably in some suburbs of the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area parts of Pennsylvania, and Contra Costa County Transportation Authority
Helvetica Neue	road signs in Hong Kong
Hiragino	East Nippon Expressway Co., Ltd. (NEXCO East Japan), Central Nippon Expressway Co., Ltd. (NEXCO Central Japan), and West Nippon Expressway Co., Ltd. (NEXCO West Japan)	Japan Highway Public Corporation (decided into three NEXCO group companies in 2005) had used its own Japan Highway Public Corporation Standard Text until 2010. Since 2010, Hiragino is used for main Japanese text, and Frutiger for numbers and Vialog for English text.[9]
Johnston	Transport for London
LTA Identity Typeface	Singapore's Mass Rapid Transit[10]
Metrolis	Lisbon Metro	Custom font for the 1995 rebranding, designed by the Foundry (Freda Sack and David Quay)
Metron	Prague Metro	Created in 1973 forby Jiří Rathouský
Motorway	Motorway route numbers in the United Kingdom and Ireland
Myriad	Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway
NPS Rawlinson	United States National Park Service	Developed as a replacement for Clarendon[3]
Parisine	Paris Métro
Pragmatica	Saint Petersburg Metro since 2002;	currently (2010—11) is being replaced by Freeset, Cyrillic variation of Frutiger
Rail Alphabet	British Rail, British Airports Authority, DSB, NHS	Designed for British Rail in 1964. Still in use on parts of the UK rail network, but mostly superseded elsewhere.
Rotis Semi Sans	Metro Bilbao	used by its own creator, Otl Aicher, for the corporate design of Metro Bilbao
Rotis Semi Serif	Station signs of Sound Transit[11]
Rotis Serif	Highway and street signposts in Singapore
Ruta CL	Chilean roads.[12]	Developed to replace Chilean Highway Gothic typefaces.
Seoul Type	Seoul Metropolitan Government	Developed by the Seoul Metropolitan Government in 2008 for usage in official Seoul Metropolitan Government documents and institutions, signage and public transport within Seoul. The structure was designed to resemble the gradual curves of a traditional hanok roof.
Sispos and Sisneg	Sweden	Designed by Bo Berndal – old Swedish standard (SIS 030011, 1973) for public road signs, displays, etc.
Standard (also known as Akzidenz-Grotesk)	New York City subway signs	Sometimes seen on older New York City subway signs. Was sometimes used in place of Helvetica.[13]
Stilu		Used for road signs in Estonia and Moldova.
Sweden Sans	Swedish Government	Commissioned by the Swedish government, and designed by Stefan Hattenbach with the partnership of Stockholm-based design agency Söderhavet, designed to represent "Swedishness" both abroad and at home, and aims to become default in official sites in Sweden.[14]
Toronto Subway Font	Toronto Transit Commission	Used in maps, publications, and most stations of the Toronto Subway and RT
Trafikkalfabetet ("The traffic alphabet")	Norway	Used for Norwegian road signs and (until 2002) motor vehicle registration plates
Transport	British roads Road signs in Hong Kong	Also used in Portugal, Greece and other countries
Tratex	Road signs in Sweden
TS Info and TS Mapa	Transantiago	Created by the DET (Departamento de Estudios Tipográficos, Universidad Católica de Chile) for the Transantiago, the public transport network in Santiago de Chile.
Univers	Montreal Metro Hong Kong International Airport	San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit and the Walt Disney World Resort road system
Vejtavleskrift ("Road sign typeface")	Road signs in Denmark[15]
Verdana		Used for road signs in Turkey, Ukraine, and in some countries in Latin America.
Vialog	Renfe, directional signs on Japanese expressways	Used in signage and all corporative communications of the state-owned Spanish Railway Operator in a custom-made version called Renfe Vialog.

See also

• Typefaces used on North American traffic signs
• Road signs in the United Kingdom

References

1. Traffic Sign Typefaces: Italy http://opentype.info/blog/2009/02/09/traffic-sign-typefaces-italy/
2. "Traffic Type Spain D - Desktop font « MyFonts". Myfonts.com. 1999-02-22. Retrieved 2012-11-09.
3. Joshua Yaffa (August 12, 2007). "The Road to Clarity". The New York Times.
4. "DB Type". Wikipedia (in German). 2016-06-21.
5. "4.5 Signage Typeface." FIP Manual. Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, n.d. Web. 17 August 2011. <http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/fip-pcim/man_4_5-eng.asp>.
7. "Branding Guidelines" (PDF). Amtrak. 2009-04-23. Retrieved 2012-03-07.
8. http://www.rfi.it/cms/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2e07ad846ea01210VgnVCM1000003f16f90aRCRD (Italian)
9. East Nippon Expressway Co., Ltd. (NEXCO East Japan), Central Nippon Expressway Co., Ltd. (NEXCO Central Japan), and West Nippon Expressway Co., Ltd. (NEXCO West Japan)「より視認し易い高速道路案内標識を目指した 標識レイアウトの変更について」
10. http://mic-ro.com/metro/files/LTAFont.pdf
11. Two Twelve Harakawa Inc.; Maestri Design Inc.; Jon Bentz Design (September 2004). "System-Wide Signage Design Manual, Second Edition" (PDF). Sound Transit. p. DS-17. Retrieved October 18, 2014. |chapter= ignored (help)
12. "Manual de Señalización de Tránsito - Conaset". CONASET, Ministerioa de Transporter Telecomunicaciones. Feb 2015.
13. … (2008-11-18). "The (Mostly) True Story of Helvetica and the New York City Subway". AIGA. Retrieved 2012-11-09.
14. http://soderhavet.com/nyheter/sverige-har-fatt-ett-eget-typsnitt/ (Italian)
15. http://www.trafikken.dk/wimpdoc.asp?page=document&objno=123041 (Danish) Q&A by the Danish road authority Archived November 15, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.