TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Sun Oct 13 14:50:09 EDT 2024

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LUC DEVROYE

ABOUT

Karl Petter Sandbæk

Designer of the lettering for traffic signs in Norway, called Trafikkalfabet (1965). This was digitized in 2006 by Jacob Øvergaard and from 2014-2020 by Arve Båtevik as Store Norske Trafikk. Examples here and here. In the last link, Ralf Herrmann explains the flaws: It bears a resemblance to the German DIN typeface, but it also has some unique features, some of them are good, some are bad. Both typefaces share a very simple geometric design and they are good examples of typefaces, that look like they were made on the drawing-board of an engineer rather than designed by a type designer. [...] A type designers knows how to optically adjust geometrical shapes to make them look right. The tip of the M needs to go below the baseline and the dot of the i needs to be wider than the stem. But the design of the Trafikkalfabetet typeface rather aims at consistent values. As a result, the dot of the i is way too small, especially for a typeface that should be legible at great distance. The spacing of the typeface has the similar problems. Uniform values for left and right sidebearings cannot create uniform spacing.

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INTERNAL LINKS
Map/Travel dingbats ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ The Norwegian type scene ⦿ Pixel/bitmap fonts ⦿ DIN ⦿