A28 and A40

[Paul Mech]

Two pics from the Briens Road, Windsor Road, James Ruse Drive intersection. Pics aren't great. Sorry.

Paul

[Paul Mech]

And I just realised I was beaten to the punch by Conrad.  J

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[tangararama]

Nice work, but how disappointing they couldn't make A28 / A40 the same size using a monospaced font.

[Sam Laybutt]

Yeah those photos really highlight the different shield sizes, doesn't look good at all. 

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Date: Fri, 31 May 2013 21:00:11 -0700
From: tanga...@gmail.com
To: aussie-...@googlegroups.com
CC: sirmech...@bigpond.com
Subject: [Aussie Highways] Re: A28 and A40

[tangararama]

Imagine if we had an A44 / A11 duplex!

[hubertla...@gmail.com]

No need to wait for those. Just look Pacific Highway Chatswood when A38/A1 are both uncovered…. >.<

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[Brett Watkins]

speaking of A40, how about SRA40?

http://goo.gl/maps/gpQhT

[Nathan Carter]

I agree, they look very ordinary.

[tangararama]

Ergh. I can imagine it now with one box twice the width of the other... Yuck.  But I suppose where you have 3 and 2-character shields alongside each other like [A1]/[A38] I can be forgiving because the reason for the size difference is obvious. 

However, in the case of [A40]/[A28] you should really expect them to be the same size!

Ben

[Paul Rands]

The more alphas that are appearing the more I hate the white box..

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Paul Rands
paul...@gmail.com

[Musa Hodzic]

Yep, I'm with ya Paul. I went through that stage already a long time ago.

First, when the M7 markers appeared, I liked them, I thought it was much neater and the white border resembled the white border around the shields, which IMO would be better for patches. When visiting other states like SA, VIC and QLD, I didn't like their alphas without the "shield-style" border around them (obviously I am used to the shields). After many such interstate trips, I sort of got used to it and then when seeing other signs in Sydney with revealed alphas, I thought it looked too cluttered and there was something aesthetically wrong about them that I still can't work out what it is. The borderless and larger alphas in other states just fell into place for me.

[davis]

The problem is less the box (which I'm about six years past disliking at this point) and more that the size of the box should simply be standardised on the sign - all the boxes should be the same size.

[Conrad Zalewski]

I disagree - I feel that the variances in the whole shield are actually good. Let me explain why.

By using the Roadgeek font, I created a template to make any shield - I've attached most of the Sydney ones. I've found that number 4 and 0 are the widest (in my main template they are at 79 and 74 pixels wide), and 1 is the narrowest (at 39 pixels wide). All the other numbers are similar (varying between 71 and 70 pixels).

So '40' is 153 pixels (with not gaps between the numbers) and '28' is 142 pixels - it makes sense that the shield be 'slightly' narrower. A total of about 4% narrower by my methods.

Let me pose a theoretical question, which option looks better when comparing A44 and A11? I think option 1 looks best as option 2 creates a lot of blank unnecessary space and option 3 stretches the letters out too much. This is an extreme example as A44 is 39% wider than A11, but I feel the standard of not changing signs to accommodate duplicate roads is good.

Just my two cents though.


Regards,

Conrad

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Conrad...

[Musa Hodzic]

Would've been better without the border and wouldn't have this issue.

[tangararama]

Excellent work Conrad - that really puts things into perspective and now I'm at the point where I think they ALL look a bit strange - no matter what you do... but thankfully we don't have many duplexes.  I think its best to think of these like Street Names (i.e. on the white rectangle) and just all convince ourselves they're supposed to be variable widths. :-)

Ben

[davis]

Individually, the left one. One above the other, routes with the same number of digits should share the same size box.

 

Regarding others' posts, you always will have this problem with vertically tiled route numbers even without the box - do you align them left or centre? And if it's centre, without a box you have to consider the "visual centre" of the route number vs its absolute centre.

 

On Sunday, June 2, 2013 3:18:54 PM UTC+10, f1f...@gmail.com wrote:

I disagree - I feel that the variances in the whole shield are actually good. Let me explain why.

[davis]

Edit: I should add you probably can't assess the visual centre from the font file (1) at low point size and (2) using the Roadgeek fonts at all because their kerning is not perfectly the same to the FHWA official ones.

[Tyler Bullock]

I actually prefer the NSW-style for some odd reason, but that could be from seeing the horrid cock-ups of QMR on a regular basis. Yuck.

 

From: aussie-...@googlegroups.com [mailto:aussie-...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of davis
Sent: Sunday, 2 June 2013 4:56 PM
To: aussie-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Aussie Highways] Re: A28 and A40

 

Individually, the left one. One above the other, routes with the same number of digits should share the same size box.

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[Paul Rands]

The other option would be to use E series on the narrower numbers, and C or D series on the rest.

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Paul Rands
paul...@gmail.com

[mubd1234]

After a bit of analysis with Trasicad it seems that the designer increased the height of the sign manually after using the intersection sign design wizard to fit the extra route marker, then made an attempt to manually centring the route markers and the Wentworthville and Windsor legends. They could have put "CUMBERLAND HIGHWAY" to fill the sign width and get rid of some empty space. Because Trasicad doesn't include an automatic way of putting duplexes on signs (only one route marker can be put on the sign using the automated wizard), sign designers have to manually put the second route number on the sign, which is harder now because the only way of doing it is by vertically stacking them (and increasing the height of the sign) due to the increased width of the route markers, whereas the previous route numbers could be placed beside each other and the vertical height would be kept the same. This probably explains why there aren't many duplexes.

Here are two signs I whipped up which could have been used instead.

[Paul Rands]

If we didn't use the boxes, then the text height for the route number could be the same as the rest of the focal points and then the designer wouldn't need to increase the height of the sign :)

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Paul Rands
paul...@gmail.com

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[Conrad Zalewski]

Thanks Ben, glad I changed your mind :P

Is this what you mean Paul? Personally, I don't like it, and feel that it's more important to have the A the same width then the whole sign. Again, this is an extreme example though.

Davis - regarding the kerning, the template I created splits up the sign into digits (34 in total - M, A, B, C and every number twice either in the 'middle' or at the 'end') and then joins together to make one. Essentially, I created my own kerning for each letter and number, and have a template to create any combination.

       

Regards,
Conrad

Conrad...

[davis]

Maybe. There may not be sufficient delineation between the route numbers if the vertical spacing is compressed, such that it harms motorists' ability to read the significance of the number at a glance.

 

Are there any interstate examples on an ID sign? It's pretty unusual to associate focal points with the route number like that.

[Conrad Zalewski]

Just realised my second image didn't go through.

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Conrad...

[davis]

hmm. Interesting concept. I wonder what Trasicad can do in this regard? I suspect "nothing" or rather "nothing without significant manual intervention of the designer" but manual intervention of the designer seems to usually result in Queensland Standard Crap(TM).

[Paul Rands]

So does someone have a Trasicad install that isn't 30 day limited?

--
Paul Rands
paul...@gmail.com

[mubd1234]

I use VMware and run Trasicad within it using a save state so I can just reset the clock if it runs out.

[Paul Rands]

Well you do need to make sure it fits your needs 

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Paul Rands
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On Sun, Jun 2, 2013 at 8:32 PM, mubd1234 <mubd...@gmail.com> wrote:

I use VMware and run Trasicad within it using a save state so I can just reset the clock if it runs out.

[Mees]

Allow me to add a few cents from Europe, much the home of this type of route shields. If you want to unify the width of a shield, it should fit B444. If you then placed A1 or C1 into a shield of that width, you'd end up with a rather empty shield. It simply does not fly. On the other hand, I am certainly not the sole European who considers A1-signs very narrow. It gets worst on the Dutch A1, which partially duplicates as European road E231 (examples at http://bewegwijzering.autosnelwegen.nl/index.php/a1-a9/a1-amsterdam-hengelo). There are countries that work with uniform-width shields: Germany, Switzerland and Italy are some of them. But it is a matter of taste whether that all works out. Italy's perfect square for A-routes is just too narrow for A-routes with double-digit numbers, particularly those above 19. The German rectangle works out better, but leaves condensed shields for three-digit routes. The condensing at three-digit routes has, on the other hand, resulted in shields for single-digit routes that are not too empty. And in Germany it might just help that they do not use the A-prefix in their shields.

Eventually, it is probably a matter of taste whether you should go for a standard width or flexible width, as long as the standard size is picked well: not too narrow, not too wide. Looking at the NSW boxes, I see a different problem. I think that the border is too thick. If you look at Paul's photos from Molong, I would say that particularly the B81-shields are off the mark. The border is thicker than the B81 letters. That is much less so on the wider A32 shields, but those borders too are thicker than stuff that you see in most of Europe (just ignore Germany and Italy with their oddly-shaped shields, check out Spain if you need a good example). I would say that, if you choose against fixed-width shields, the narrower shields will have to be made with a border adjusted to the smaller width of the shield.

Subject to such a rightsizing of the shields, I am not actually against the use of boxes. Although I am not very much for them either. Having a box creates good separation of information in the signs: route numbers vs. focals. Not having a box, on the other hand, leaves better visibility of the focals, while the route number itself will continue to stand out thanks to its different colour.

All the best,
Mees

[Paul Rands]

Mees,

Thanks for the examples. I think the key here is that the Dutch have these shields side by side and not stacked like RMS has done.

I also like the different coloured boxes used on the Dutch ones. The number stands out more.

--
Paul Rands
paul...@gmail.com

[Tyler Bullock]

If they actually converted the boxed symbols into a font then it would be much easier.

 

From: aussie-...@googlegroups.com [mailto:aussie-...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Paul Rands
Sent: Sunday, 2 June 2013 7:15 PM
To: Aussie Highways Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Aussie Highways] Re: A28 and A40

 

If we didn't use the boxes, then the text height for the route number could be the same as the rest of the focal points and then the designer wouldn't need to increase the height of the sign :)

[Mees]

Thanks Paul. Your point about the shields side-by-side as opposed to stacked makes sense. But even in the side-by-side approach I think that A1 is overwhelmed by E231. While A1 is very much the route number of choice here for the very vast majority of motorists.

Boxes with different colours indeed result in numbers standing out more. But to my liking, a red box on a blue sign is bad news for the focal points, particularly on smaller shields. All a matter of taste of course, but you can certainly look at this stand-out value as a gliding scale.

(Lowest visibility of the route number)
- The approach on white signs in Britain: route number in plain text. No box, no other font, no other colour.
- The approach on blue signs in Britain: route number in plain text. No box, no other colour, but different font
- The alphas of most Australian states, British green signs and South Africa: route number in plain text. No box, no different font, but different colour
- A boxed route number with the same background colour as the rest of the sign (NSW alphas, Germany, Sweden, many others)
- A boxed route number with a background colour contrasting with the rest of the sign (Netherlands, France, Poland, many Spanish road numbers)
- Old Australian / US route shields with white or blue background
- Old Australian / US-type route shields with multiple colours and/or standout background colour (e.g. US Interstate)
(highest visibility of the route number)

So choose how you want your route numbers to stand out in comparison to the focal points, and you can now choose how the route number shield should be designed.

Best regards,
Mees

[Sam Laybutt]

Can't really avoid that though - the alpha 'box' would look stupid with heaps of space inside it

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From: hubertla...@gmail.com
To: aussie-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [Aussie Highways] Re: A28 and A40
Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2013 13:34:58 +0000

[Sam Laybutt]

I concur

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Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2013 23:55:33 -0700
From: hornet...@gmail.com

To: aussie-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Aussie Highways] Re: A28 and A40