There very vast majority of US states and Canadian provinces have very simple designs. A ‘state look’, such as the Utah beehive or George Washington’s silhouette in Washington, will often adversely affect legibility at 100 kmh so states have rather been moving to “the simpler the better” ever since the shields were first incorporated into the green signs as opposed to being standalone. So far as that’s concerned, a shield that tracks the outline of the state weapon - sorry I think it’s a bit useless.
Taking things back to the question “to alpha or not to alpha”: alphas allow for more efficient sign design compared to shields, because you’re looking at substantially the same capital height as normal lettering and because it’s generally not such a huge design element to factor in. Plus you don’t need to design something new for every class of road you have in mind; you just change the prefix. But with that general principle in mind, I have to say that the actual implementation throughout Australia hasn’t really impressed me. All too often, they’ve continued to use old designs and just placed the alpha where the shield used to be. Which doesn’t fly as the alpha is just a different animal compared to a shield.
This is also where bordered alphas often resulted in better signs: not because the borders themselves are so good (give me a borderless alpha on a South African sign or on UK green signage any time), but because it improved legibility in situations where the alpha was just given the position where the historic shield used to be...
On 21/07/2021 at 15:58, #130km/hforthehume wrote: