Why the US has two different highway fonts

The typefaces on highway signs, deconstructed.

When you head out on the highway in the United States, you’re probably paying attention to the signs above your car and on the side of the road — the ones that direct you to your destination. If you’re looking for an exit or a rest stop, chances are you’ll see the typeface Highway Gothic. It became the highway standard in the 1950s, born out of an initiative from the California Department of Transportation to develop a clearer and more flexible standard for highway signs.

But for the past decade, a new typeface has been trying to take its place: Clearview. This new typeface boasts wider spaces inside of letters and less chunky letterforms, and tries to solve some of Highway Gothic’s readability issues. Learn more in the video above.

More from typeface designer Tobias Frere-Jones, who designed the typeface Interstate as an homage to Highway Gothic:

More information on how the FHWA decided to grant Clearview an interim approval:

More on research behind Clearview’s legibility:

More on the differences between Highway Gothic and Clearview:

[dartagnan]

This is the type of video you watch when you're procrastinating your assignments

[MegaJestify]

Vox finds the weirdest, most abstract seemingly basic topics you could think of and forces you to be interested in it

[SwitchAndLever]

I find it a bit of an oversight to interview Tobias Frere-Jones without actually acknowledging that he designed an updated and more legible version of the Highway Gothic typeface called Interstate. It improves on the original, but without pushing it into Clearview territory.

[rostinrostai]

Im planning on doing a cross country journey that takes 48 hours of driving, I better pack my single orange!

[evanbaker]

Gonna crash off the highway trying to figure out which font I’m looking at on every sign I pass now

[heath.c]

I have never been so interested in something I care so little about

[TheStitchWitchPodcast]

I love this kind of unnecessary yet entertaining discourse on Americana!!! PLEASE talk about that 'state green" and "reserve land brown" paint shade that is definitely Pantone patented!!

[DanSchaumann]

Some GeoGuessr pro out there has probably devised a way to use roadsign typeface to further determine with pinpoint accuracy where they are in the US

[johnchessant]

Time for my regular dose of knowledge I'll only ever use because I'm my friend group's "wanna hear something interesting" guy

[richardmartinez]

This feels like it should have been a "half as interesting" vid

[pixieanna]

Thanks for posting this, it was a burning issue for me.

[TheKelpsinator]

Important note: it's not just older people who struggle with halation. It happens to everyone with astigmatism, which is about 20% of the population. I have a fairly extreme version of it, and let me tell you that halation is *everywhere.* I'm glad that people are at least trying to find a solution for this on the highways!

[AnnNunnally]

Highway Gothic needs to be the title of a TV show.

[gisellemiradiaz]

My whole undergrad thesis was based on the usage of Highway gothic typeface as it’s used in the US, Canada and Mexico.

[JoeAngeLove]

Bethlehem ✨ That's my town in the thumbnail! Yay small town, we made it in a Vox video!

[carykh]

whoa I use an updated version of Highway Gothic (Interstate) in my projects! It's cool to see where the font really originated from

[inompsum]

Vox: here's a question literally no one asks.
Me: hmm...interesting.

[illy]

i needed this video for some odd reason

[muhammadafiqshahrom]

OMG last night I was googling the different font types of road signs in different countries. Good timing!!!

[sheik]

The curved lowercase L is the best thing about ClearviewHwy. There are different spacings/weights that can help with dark text on a bright background as well. Would've been nice to point out that one of the newer studies (or maybe it was the FHWA report) pointed out that a lot of the initial "improvements" in legibility vs. Highway Gothic was because the signs were decades old and they were compared against brand new ClearviewHwy signs.