The increased letter height will aid in the legibility and visibility for older drivers. This sign design takes advantage of the prismatic sheeting benefits and the increased legibility of the upper, lower case text. And this is why I find them oddly charming and very interesting. The legend will be eight-inch upper, lower case Clearview 3W font. The Clearview font was developed for traffic signs as the result of a program to increase the legibility and ease of recognition of positive contrast sign legends while reducing the effects of halation (or overglow). I very much doubt you have ever stopped at an intersection, looked at the road sign above the stop light, and said "Wow, what a pretty typeface!" To be honest, road sign typefaces are the ugliest boring typefaces I have ever seen. Sometimes you need silence in typeface design, so that the information comes across clear and unadulterated. So it was a big deal in the transportation world in 2004 when Texas and a handful of other states took their signs in a different direction, opting to use Clearview, an independently designed font. However, this ability is also distracting under the wrong circumstances.
To get back on topic and to my point, typefaces easily imbue meaning into words. Many food companies choose typefaces with very wide smiling e's. A funny thing to ask yourself as you walk by store signs is "What does that typeface make me feel?" A great tip is to quickly look and compare lowercase e, a, and g's when you get a chance. The word "people" has a different feeling when it is in Comic Sans versus Times New Roman. They are often chosen carefully to apply another layer of meaning to a piece of literature or art, or they are used to add identity to a brand. Typefaces are the clothes that our words wear.
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