Canadian Government Signage
March 5th, 2008
Design: Unknown
Client: Government of Canada
Date: Unknown
I had always assumed that the Canadian Government used Helvetica for all of its brand outputs — but after spending far too many hours staring at a sign hanging from the ceiling of my local passport office, non-Helvetica flourishes began to appear (see ‘r’ comparison above with Helvetica Medium overlaid in red). At first I assumed that, like so many large institutions, various smaller agencies within the larger whole had gone off-brand by substituting Arial or Helvetica Neue for Helvetica proper (because whoever made the sign was using a PC, or didn’t know any better, or some combination of the two), but after a bit of design geekery (apparently government offices don’t like you taking hundreds of detail shots of their signage) and some googling, I came across Section 4.5 of the Federal Identity Program’s Usage Manual, aptly titled ‘signage typeface’.
Apparently the government adopted a typeface variant based on Helvetica Medium, yet decidedly incompatible with original. The FIP manual gives no real reason for this decision, but I would assume that either A) the government felt Helvetica just wasn’t good enough for wide-scale, standardized usage in signage, and decided to spend a large sum of money on a detailed analysis of the optical failings of the original and how best to improve the typeface (not so likely), B) whoever designed the first signs didn’t have Helvetica Medium, substituted their own variant and then spit out a whack of post-design-rationalization in the form of Section 4.5 of the FIP manual (somewhat likely), or C) some combination of A as instigated by B (most likely).
If anyone has further details on the story behind this typographic oddity, please let us know — it would probably make for a better entry than my highly-biased guess-work.
-John Ryan
8 Comments Add your own
1. Lynette Reid | March 15th, 2008 at 05:00
After 10 minutes of googling, it seems to me that modifying Helvetica for signage use, given lighting technologies used in signs, is not uncommon.
Maybe they did this because they hired design professionals and those professionals told them to.
The following article mentions modified Helvetica as being in common use in European road signs while telling an interesting story about signage and lighting/reflectivity.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/magazine/12fonts-t.html?pagewanted=all
2. John R | March 15th, 2008 at 09:26
Hi Lynette,
You make an interesting point about typeface legibility when lit, and the problems of halation in highway signage. However I feel it’s important to note that the above typeface is used in government signage (identification and on-site wayfinding) only, and not on highway or road signage.
Interestingly enough, the majority of Canadian highway and road signage uses the same FHWA (Federal Highway Administration) Series font as the states (the article you link to refers to it by the informal ‘Highway Gothic’). (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FHWA_Series_fonts)
I guess the real question is if this modified Helvetica is used primarily for identifier signs, why not use it brand wide? It would be highly unusual for, say, Royal Bank, to use Meta Sans for all brand outputs (which they do) and then use a customized variant of Meta Sans for the sign on the front of their building only (which they don’t).
It would take further comparison and contrast, but I’m also wary of chalking the differences up to legibility issues. The modifications in the ‘r’ displayed above seem like stylistic flourishes that neither increase nor diminishes legibility. In fact I feel as if the angle of the ear and curvier shoulder could potentially reduce legibility at smaller sizes – but I’m neither a legibility expert nor a type aficionado, so I’m comfortable admitting that I may be totally off.
Cheers,
J
3. The Canadian Design Resou&hellip | March 21st, 2008 at 18:08
[...] a few minutes poking around; there’s lots of fascinating stuff. For instance, I learned that Helvetica Neue ain’t the right Helvetica for the federal government’s corporate identity. I mean, who [...]
4. Jay | April 1st, 2008 at 08:02
Sadly enough, the last letter I received from a federal government office had an address label in the dreaded Comic Sans.
5. John R | April 1st, 2008 at 09:02
Jay: Wow. Just, wow.
6. Jay | April 2nd, 2008 at 09:42
Now that I’ve thought about it, John, I am sure it was from the Passport Office!
7. The CANADIAN DESIGN RESOU&hellip | March 6th, 2009 at 10:42
[...] some nice examples of government-sponsored modernism (see the “Canada” wordmark, Canadian flag, Government signage, Parks Canada logo, Canada Post, etc.), but here is an effective bit of government-sponsored [...]
8. national identity. «&hellip | February 22nd, 2010 at 10:47
[...] this image, Helvetica Medium is overlaid in red. More musings at the Canadian Design Resource. And more still at the “signage typeface” section of the Federal Identity [...]
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed