Talk:Transport (typeface)

A fact from Transport (typeface) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 19 May 2006. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Transport typeface was created for use on British road signs (pictured) following the introduction of the motorway network?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2006/May.

Wikipedia

Tanzanian Road Sign

Is the font on the sign on the right (taken in Tanzania at the Rusumo Falls border crossing with Rwanda) in the Transport typeface as well? It looks fairly similar. Signs in Kenya also look much like British ones, but I don't know the reason. — SteveRwanda 17:38, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is; it has the distinctive "g" of Transport. smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 17:40, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it certainly looks like it, I think its probably Transport Medium and not Transport Heavy, despite the fact that its dark text on a light background. Presumably the reason roads signs in Kenya are like this goes back to Kenya's pre-independence era. Kenya gained independence in 1963 and Transport was well used in the UK long before then.--Joe 1987 18:30, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oddly, they seem to have used Transport Heavy for the white-on-black B3, and Transport Medium for the rest. smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 20:40, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Was Transport in use before 1963? The infobox in the article says that's its creation date... In any case I'd be very surprised if the sign dates back to preindependence days - I'd guess it's more likely that the UK continued to provide road signs for its former colonies in some form or another.

I've uploaded a second sign from the village a few miles down the road (see below) - this one's in very poor condition, but also uses Transport (albeit with further anacronisms such as putting a B road in a green box as if it were a primary route). — SteveRwanda 08:52, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good article

Good article —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.130.246.2 (talk • contribs)

I agree. Very interesting article. I have two questions:

What does the line Until the late 1950s, most roads in the United Kingdom were B roads mean? Did they increase the number of A roads after that time as well as introducing motorways? I wonder if the line should be clarified to single-carriageway roads or similar?
Is this typeface available as a computer font?

Cheers. — SteveRwanda 12:08, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Chris's British Road Directory, in the article's links section, has homemade versions of the font and a link to the licenced commercial font. --GagHalfrunt 13:20, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Above link is dead, CBRD became roads.org.uk, the above page is now here: https://www.roads.org.uk/index.php/fonts GoodClover ^{(a.k.a. Olive, GodClovere, )} (talk) 14:01, 24 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Merge ?

Agree: merge into Transport (typeface)--219.77.165.93 13:05, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Relationship to Akzidenz Grotesk

Chris Marshall states definitely that this font is a "modification" of Akzidenz Grotesk - [1] . Is he a sufficiently reliable source for us to put this in the article? Tevildo 23:42, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Chris has withdrawn the claim. Tevildo (talk) 08:33, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Some limited residual usage in Commonwealth states"

This phrase seems anachronistic to me.

Transport wasn't in use in the UK until the turn of the 1960s. Road signs in the colonies would probably not have adopted it until several years later - and by the late 1960s, most British colonies had gained independence.

It may well be that many former British colonies subsequently adopted Transport for some or all of their signage. But the wording as it stands implies that the decision was taken by British administrators, which may well not be the case.

For instance, Malaysia's road network uses a variety of typefaces. Most roads seem to use the FHWA typeface - but at least some of the newer motorways from Kuala Lumpur's KL Sentral railway station to the new international airport built in the 1990s use Transport (Malaysia's been independent since 1957 - definitely not a residual colonial choice, then), and Helvetica seems to be in use too.

Unless the phrase can be substantiated, I'd suggest simply removing it and listing countries or global regions where it's in use.

--DrDaveHPP (talk) 15:10, 5 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Creation date

The infobox lists the creation date of this font as 1963 - this is incorrect and is actually disputed in the opening para of the article. It was already in use on some roads in the UK in 1958 (including, as a first trial, signs on the approach to the Chiswick Flyover) so its creation date would more appropriately be 1957.

Cf. the comment above that the font was modified from Akzidenz Grotesk - I am the Chris mentioned there and I don't recall withdrawing that claim; in fact I'm still quite sure it's true. There is, for example, a published essay on the development of Transport by Ole Lund: I don't have the text before me now but I believe that this discusses the origins of Transport. A comparison of Transport and Akzidenz Grotesk side-by-side also shows that they are, very clearly, related in the shape of almost every letterform. Kinneir and Calvert's main changes were in producing versions of different stroke widths, adjusting spacing for greater clarity and introducing the distinctive tails on the lowercase l and a.

--Chris Marshall (www.cbrd.co.uk) 132.185.240.122 (talk) 10:50, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Transport on UK government websites?

Is it me, or have government websites such as this one started publishing in Transport recently? It looks slightly odd, because this is a typeface optimised for large letters to be written at distance, not for printed prose. It might be worth a mention in the article if it is the case. — Amakuru (talk) 15:24, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]