[HN Gopher] Fran Sans - font inspired by San Francisco light rai...
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Fran Sans - font inspired by San Francisco light rail displays
Author : ChrisArchitect
Score : 1103 points
Date : 2025-11-23 18:20 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (emilysneddon.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (emilysneddon.com)
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Start here for more of the actual font:
| https://emilysneddon.com/fransans
| zygentoma wrote:
| Both of these pages seem to me like they're designed for
| mobile-only usage.
|
| I'm sitting here with a 4k screen, browser maximized, and all
| text is, like, huuuuge!
|
| And the worst part? You can't zoom! Seems kind of user-hostile
| to me ...
| pabs3 wrote:
| Disabling CSS helps.
| aoki wrote:
| > Back at the SFMTA, Armando told me the Breda vehicles are being
| replaced, and with them their destination displays will be
| swapped for newer LED dot-matrix units that are more efficient
| and easier to maintain. By the end of 2025 the signs that
| inspired Fran Sans will disappear from the city, taking with them
| a small but distinctive part of the city's voice.
|
| :-(
| amelius wrote:
| If the dot-matrix is fine enough, you could still render any
| font properly. Plus you can add emoticons :)
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| All of the Breda LRVs were retired earlier this month and their
| replacements use entirely different displays. Can't say I'll be
| that nostalgic for the signs or trains.
| eichin wrote:
| FYI no lower case, also "contact the author for licensing". (The
| article is a neat story of digging into the history of the
| displays which are about to be going out of service, as well as
| some practical aspects of the font design - it's just not
| casually available.)
| lilsneddz wrote:
| Honestly, I wasn't expecting this font to go anywhere, and then
| the SF Chronicle reached out, which has been lovely. Anyone who
| emails me can have a copy, I just haven't made an easy download
| link. I've thought about it since, but actually it's way nicer
| to hear from people and hear about what they're making. It is a
| community-driven project, and this slower form of distribution
| feels closer to my original intent. :)
| oktwtf wrote:
| Typography nerds are some of my favourite nerds.
|
| Font specimen pages are so often screaming with design language
| and intention, they push and prod to evoke and present.
|
| Maybe the secret has something to do with the lack of priority to
| the actual content; just present the font gosh-darn!
|
| Looks nicely executed within the confines of the inspiration.
| very cool
| shagie wrote:
| Andrew Glassner's Notebook: Recreational Computer Graphics is a
| _really_ neat book (I especially like the tiles that can add
| numbers). The author 's site is https://glassner.com/computer-
| graphics/
|
| Chapter 6 in the book (
| https://archive.org/details/andrewglassnersn0000glas/page/98...
| ) Signs of Significance starts with 7 segment displays to the
| 14 segment and 5x7...
|
| He then goes on to the 66 segment Vienna underground font and
| an 83 segment font he saw in an elevator at a Siggraph
| conference in Orlando ... and then concludes with his own 55
| element mosaic.
|
| --
|
| Also, Adam Savage's Tested - https://youtu.be/eKCcqlJnZcA (3
| days ago) looking at
| https://www.kellianderson.com/books/alphabetinmotion.html
|
| At 7:00 into the video is C & D pages looking at the modularity
| of a font.
|
| (the section "U & V" about 3/4 down the page has the modular
| components for Kombinations-Schrift
| https://www.moma.org/collection/works/2724 which was also
| looked at at 22:00 into the video.
| Aloisius wrote:
| Someone made a JavaScript version of Glassner's 55 segment
| design along with a dozen others that's fun to play with:
|
| https://aresluna.org/segmented-type/
| shagie wrote:
| The six segment one... if you get going with it, it's not
| too difficult to read. There are some odd ones there, but
| it's surprisingly readable (some are easier than some of
| the seven segment letterforms).
| larodi wrote:
| Many of these seem to be on HN if you come to think about it as
| every post about fonts skyrockets immediately in popularity. Or
| STEM people are generally inclined to adoration of nice looking
| glyphs...
| baruchel wrote:
| > Typography nerds are some of my favourite nerds.
|
| A very detailed summary for another font (by the creator of the
| font), including ancient materials as well: https://mass-
| driver.com/article/md-nichrome-on-spacing-and-s...
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| For UK readers, this is eerily similar to the typeface originally
| used on the "Thames Turbo" trains (class 165/166) from their
| construction in the 1990s until a refurb about five years ago - I
| could believe it was the same manufacturer. Some photos:
|
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:166207_DMCO_Interior...
|
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:British_Rail_Cla...
| croisillon wrote:
| i believe that 3x5 display is quite common and might not have
| its origin in SF
| JackFr wrote:
| It seems identical to the displays used in NJ Transit trains.
| Aloisius wrote:
| NJ Transit uses 105-segment displays. Not only do they
| include lowercase letters, but the uppercase and numbers
| are noticeably different from MUNI's 38-segment displays.
| croisillon wrote:
| ha :) https://www.reddit.com/r/typography/comments/1jp9ju
| j/i_turne...
|
| and from that discussion: https://aresluna.org/segmented-
| type/
|
| in Vienna we have a 66 segment:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vienna_u-
| bahn_display_clo...
| Johnny555 wrote:
| >On route, train operators punch the code into a control panel at
| the back of the display, and the LCD blocks light on specific
| segments of the grid to build each letter
|
| I always thought those were mechanical displays with little
| mechanical shutters that moved to display the segments... like
| these:
|
| https://youtu.be/Gj_mTp6Ypzk
|
| Never knew they were LCD.
| becomevocal wrote:
| Have been in font picking mode recently so this was a relevant
| enough distraction. Excellent read!
| arkensaw wrote:
| Be honest though, did the name come first?
| lilsneddz wrote:
| Haha, hi, it's me, Emily, the designer of this font. It
| actually didn't come first! And strangely finding an available
| name was almost the hardest part.
| adastra22 wrote:
| As a native that absolutely cringes at "San Fran" ... I still got
| mad respect for that awesome name. Well done.
| jabberwhookie wrote:
| I've always found that cringe to be a strange shibboleth.
| AFAICT everyone has to summarize with the bay area instead,
| which I find even more comic having grown up on a coast, aka a
| bay area.
| adastra22 wrote:
| The bay area is more than SF. If you mean San Francisco and
| don't want to say the whole name, you use either 'SF' or 'the
| city.'
|
| I'm not sure why it's a strange shibboleth? Not every name
| has to be shortened, and if you are going to shorten names,
| not every short form is acceptable. I don't know where "San
| Fran" came from, any more than "Cali", neither of which are
| used by locals, but it just doesn't feel respectable. It's
| not the name of the city.
| gerdesj wrote:
| "SF ... It's not the name of the city."
|
| Your words ... 8)
| clhodapp wrote:
| I think it honesty just boils down to: It sounds bad.
| adastra22 wrote:
| You've never met an Alexander that despises being called
| "Alex"?
| mkoubaa wrote:
| No but they all seem upset when I call them Alexa
| gerdesj wrote:
| No. Why would you "despise" being referred to?
|
| My first name is Jonathan, I generally get referred to as
| (int al) Jon, Jonny, Jo, or John (bloody silent letters).
|
| As it turns out, until I was 20 I thought my name was
| spelt Jonathon. I got a copy of my birth cert to get a
| student loan and discovered the "truth" - even my
| passport was wrong and my parents had to sort out the
| first few of those and they should have known better! I
| was born in 1970 and no one noticed that I misspelt my
| own first name for 20 years.
| gghffguhvc wrote:
| When I lived in SF I walked past this street art a couple
| of times a week and got a smile.
|
| https://www.sfstairways.com/stairways/eugenia-avenue-
| prospec...
| adastra22 wrote:
| Ha, that's great!
| chaboud wrote:
| Well, this is THE Bay Area, where we live in THE city, drive
| on THE 101, and eat in THE Chinatown.... wait...
|
| Funny enough, though, it wasn't until I moved here 15+ years
| ago that it struck me how odd it is to call it "the Bay Area"
| and expect people to know what that means. Nonetheless,
| sportscasters do it. Musicians do it. All other bay areas are
| just areas around bays...
| ucarion wrote:
| Eddie Izzard was joking in 1998 about the "The" and the
| prohibited names for The City
| (https://youtu.be/QRB_GhLXCds?si=R4kYkodzvYDxe33H&t=276),
| so it's probably been like this for many decades thence!
| slater wrote:
| > drive on THE 101
|
| _excuuuuuuse_ you? It 's "drive on 101" in NorCal :P
| ternaryoperator wrote:
| in fact, use of the article before the highway number is
| a giveaway that the person is from elsewhere.
| stevage wrote:
| like "the tristate"
| jes5199 wrote:
| ride the BART
| nvader wrote:
| My theory for why "San Fran" is looked down upon is that the
| person saying it is perceived as making a claim to status: 'I
| am so cool and hip that I am on familiar terms with "San
| Fran".'
|
| But shortening San Francisco to San Fran is both very
| obvious, and betrays a cheap attempt at sophistication that
| the soul of SF rejects.
|
| SF feels like a transitory city as multiple successive waves
| of people drift in and out. That also contribute to why a
| shibboleth like this gets a lot of airtime. The episode
| probably recurs weekly in bars all over the city as someone
| who's just moved here calls it "San Fran", only to be
| corrected by someone who's been here for just a little
| longer.
| decimalenough wrote:
| I'll be sure to call it "Frisco" instead.
|
| +1 on the awesome name though.
| bonoboTP wrote:
| Sans Francisco
| simondotau wrote:
| A silent router: Sans Fancisco
| zjp wrote:
| That's fine, it's what people from the east and south sides
| call it.
| lilsneddz wrote:
| Hey, I made this font. I really ummed and ahhed over the name
| for this exact same reason. But in the end it was just too
| clever to pass up. Thanks for moving past it, haha.
| drob518 wrote:
| Bonus points for cleverness.
| hamburglar wrote:
| I also approve of the cleverness. Correct choice not to pass
| it up.
|
| I also have a soft spot for typography weenies, and
| appreciation for well thought out typography in an age when
| it seems like it's becoming rarer and rarer. Great to see
| this on HN.
| neonmagenta wrote:
| what you chose was 100% wayy too good to pass up, that
| wouldve been the first thing pun-lovers pointed out if you
| chose anything else. because ITS RIGHT THERE
| renewiltord wrote:
| It's funny how most SF posts will have an "as a native" say
| that. You don't really get that from London as much. Strangely
| parochial attribute of the culture. I wonder which other cities
| have such populations. NYC has a big "transplant" vs. "native"
| thing going on so maybe it's just American, but I think people
| do it in Vancouver too. Though Canadians just kind of copy
| Americans for the most part.
|
| I've taken to calling the city San Fran as a result. Sometimes
| I enjoy a good EssEffOh or Frisco too. Really gets the audience
| going.
| adastra22 wrote:
| NYC is the only other one I can think of, though I'm sure
| there are many. Maybe LA as well? It's just that the
| transplants outnumber the natives by a large amount. The
| house I live in now was fruit orchards when I was born.
| jeffreygoesto wrote:
| London England or London Ontario?
| andrewshadura wrote:
| You mean Real London and Fake London?
| renewiltord wrote:
| As a native, we natives know which one.
| RyJones wrote:
| It's been a while since I grabbed this:
| https://blog.ryjones.org/2006/10/21/Welcome-to-the-Bay-Area
| roughly wrote:
| That was a great read with a ton of fun little bread crumbs to
| follow. Tipo Velez/Super Veloz gets a mention, and it's
| definitely worthy of a diversion if you haven't seen it before.
|
| For all the modern handwringing about SF, it really is a hell of
| a city with a fascinating history.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| I like the underlying commitment to design in the original
| displays. Seemingly the double height slants on the bottom are
| _solely_ for rendering the letter V. They have no other purpose
| than for that letter.
| lilsneddz wrote:
| I'm the designer of Fran Sans and I love that you noticed this
| detail in the original displays!!! :)
| agg23 wrote:
| Beware that pressing the back arrow twice takes you to unexpected
| naked photos.
| crazygringo wrote:
| This is the second comment I've seen on HN today about the back
| button having unexpected results on a site.
|
| I'm so confused -- I use Chrome on a Mac and my back button
| works entirely normally. No naked photos, sorry to report.
|
| Is this a real thing that Chrome isn't susceptible to? Or are
| people just making jokes?
| anamexis wrote:
| They mean the left arrow key on your keyboard.
| decimalenough wrote:
| Here you go: https://emilysneddon.com/tinn
|
| NSFW, obviously, but also not all _that_ titillating. (It 's
| artsy B&W photography of women in their bathrooms.)
| adastra22 wrote:
| Use the arrow key. It moves the carousel, landing on some
| scandalizing artistic photos.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Not much scandalising in that IMO. Very arty photos. Would
| anyone find this offensive?
| adastra22 wrote:
| I don't think any reasonable person would, but there are
| contexts in which unexpected partial nudity might be
| troublesome. If one's a librarian or teacher browsing the
| web from a very public desk where people can see my
| screen, I'd appreciate the warning.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Ah good point!
| crazygringo wrote:
| Oh, thank you. I've never heard of the left arrow key being
| called the back arrow.
| seniortaco wrote:
| Are they naked photos you've seen before?
| myself248 wrote:
| I wonder what's happening to the displays that're being retired!
| I hope someone can nab them from the waste stream...
| lilsneddz wrote:
| Hi, I'm Emily the designer of Fran Sans. One of the Breda cars
| is going to the California State Railroad Museum, and it has
| the displays in it. I also suggested to the Letterform Archive
| in SF that they may have interest in it. I do know they've
| archived some of the NY subway curtain displays, so I think
| it's only fair they save one of these in their collections too.
| myself248 wrote:
| That's one, but what about all the rest? If someone at the
| service garage has any sense, they'll make sure the displays
| end up on eBay, not a crusher. I can see a bunch of nerds
| turning them into all sorts of wonderful things.
| lilsneddz wrote:
| Yep, not sure, but I agree. I didn't get to speak to the
| people in charge of these decisions, but would also love to
| know where they're going. I wouldn't be surprised if they
| do end up on ebay.
| meta-level wrote:
| I like it because my first name is Frans
| msarnoff wrote:
| I have seen these throughout the US and Europe and been
| fascinated by them. Penn Station has (had? been a while) a big
| one with more segments per character. I've been trying forever to
| find the name of this particular style of segmented displays and
| get more info on them. The closest I could find is "mosaic
| display."
|
| Love this article!
|
| Signed, someone who has an obsession with segmented displays
| sho_hn wrote:
| It's probably Reitberger's 38-segment AFA alphanumeric LCD:
|
| https://www.reitberger.de/English/Large%20displays/Alphanume...
|
| https://www.reitberger.de/English/Broadsheet/Prospekt_GA_AFA...
|
| These are very common here.
| Aloisius wrote:
| The Penn Station passenger display was, according to the NYT,
| segmented LCD glass made by Signature Technologies in
| Arizona.
|
| It had 43 segments (each character had a 13 segment column,
| 17 segments column, then another 13 segment column that was a
| mirror of the first). You can see the segment shape on the
| original sign:
|
| https://media.wired.com/photos/59327db4aef9a462de983397/3:2/.
| ..
|
| The same segment design was used on in Spain along with a
| more angular version:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210602143217im_/https://pbs.tw.
| ..
| badlibrarian wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-flap_display
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-disc_display
| msarnoff wrote:
| When I was last at Penn Station in the 2010s their departure
| board was a mosaic LCD like the article, not a split-flap
| display:
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Penn_Sta.
| ..
|
| I do miss the split flap displays at the Boston and
| Providence Amtrak stations though...
| Beijinger wrote:
| For commercial and non-commercial use of FRAN SANS, please get in
| touch: emily@......com
| seniortaco wrote:
| For some reason when I read this font in the digital samples, it
| feels a bit Soviet? I subconsciously expect the text to be in
| cyrillic.
| lynndotpy wrote:
| This is the spitting image of the "FontStruct" tool, which I have
| fond memories of! I wonder if there was some overlap.
|
| I second the sentiments here about typography nerds. This is very
| very cool.
| shevy-java wrote:
| So ... hard to read then?
| flypunk wrote:
| This post ends with a beautiful poem set in Frans Sans
|
| OUTSIDE MY LIFE, INSIDE THE DREAM.
|
| FALLING UP THE STAIRS, INTO THE STREET.
|
| LET THE CABLE CAR CARRY ME.
|
| STRAIGHT OUT OF TOWN, INTO THE SEA.
|
| PAST THE DAHLIAS AND THE SELF-DRIVING CARS.
|
| THE CHURCH OF 8 WHEELS. THE LOWER HAIGHT BARS.
|
| THE PEAK HOUR SPRAWL. THE KIDS IN THE PARK.
|
| THE SLANTING HOUSES. THE BAY AFTER DARK.
|
| MY WINDOW, MY OWN SILVER SCREEN.
|
| I FOLLOW WHERE THE FOG TAKES ME.
|
| By MADDY CARRUCAN
| namanyayg wrote:
| I moved to SF this year and I love this poem.
|
| Q: is the church of 8 wheels really a popular destination? Or
| is this the poet's bias towards the haight and hayes areas?
|
| For me, Mission Dolores represents "classic SF" and is the area
| I'm fondest of -- and contrarily, the Salesforce Park and the
| surrounding area is the pinnacle of tech & capitalism (and b2b
| saas.)
| kens wrote:
| I appreciate that the author talked to various people
| (technician, engineer) and visited the shop rather than just
| doing online research. It's rare for people to go to the effort
| of in-person research.
| int0x29 wrote:
| When I was a child the front side displays on new Muni buses used
| to use these probably solonoid driven LED arrays. If you sat
| under one you could here this clattering sound that sounded kinda
| like rain each time the display changed. This discussion is
| bringing back old memories of those.
|
| The older Breda trains and I think buses also used to use backlit
| paper rolls for signs:
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/T_Third_...
| Those were significantly more readable
| lilsneddz wrote:
| They certainly did. The SFMTA also showed these to me and
| explained that not only were they extremely temperamental, but
| it also cost about $3k to print one of the curtains with the
| special barcode that prompts the curtains to rotate.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| Assuming you mean one of these guys:
|
| https://cptdb.ca/wiki/images/6/60/San_Francisco_MUNI_8001-a....
|
| https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/File:San_Francisco_MUNI_8110...
|
| The signs made quite a racket, but so did the buses (well, the
| first model I linked to).
|
| Fun fact: When Muni first rolled out the digital signs on their
| newer Bredas the set the signs to rotate through three
| different pieces of information. So for 2/3 of the time you had
| no indication of where the train was headed.
|
| Bonus fun fact: the cloth rolls have a variety of routes and
| destinations that never came to be.
| rsynnott wrote:
| When I was a kid, DART (a not-quite-metro rapid transit thing
| in Dublin) trains had printed maps with LEDs for each
| station; they were green until the train passed them, then
| turned red. This seemed like absolute magic to me at the
| time.
|
| When a branch line was added, these displays were updated,
| though they weren't put in the newer rolling stock. Then
| another station was opened on the existing line, and they
| just switched them off. They're still present on some trains,
| but haven't done anything in 15 years. They'll finally
| presumably go away in the next year or so, as the '80s
| rolling stock they're found in is due to be retired. I'll
| kind of miss them.
| some_guy_nobel wrote:
| > For commercial and non-commercial use of FRAN SANS, please get
| in touch: emily@emilysneddon.com
|
| Cool article, pretty lame that the person creating a recreation
| of a public-funded font is gatekeeping it behind their email,
| though.
| lilsneddz wrote:
| Ouch, that was certainly not my intention. I didn't expect this
| to be shared around, and hadn't considered the best way to make
| it available. It's open, and I've shared it for free with every
| single person who has emailed me. I feel like this slower form
| of distribution is closer to the original intent of the font as
| I've been able to connect and chat with lots of incredible SF
| locals and Muni fans in the process. :)
|
| I made Fran Sans for fun in my own spare time which was a lot
| of work. I do want to add that all fonts are inspired by work
| that came before it... yet at some point, the font becomes your
| own. Yes, Fran Sans is based on the Trans-Lite signage, however
| when I digitised it, I had to make a number of my own personal
| design decisions along the way which makes this work my own.
| Particularly the addition of different styles and characters
| that were never made for the original signage.
|
| I hoped my intent came through in my commitment to researching
| and sharing this piece of local history that would have
| otherwise been lost as there was nothing to be found online
| when I started this journey.
|
| Hope this clears up my intention, I'd love to send you a copy
| if you're interested, and I'm open to hearing your distribution
| ideas.
| hamburglar wrote:
| You just gotta get used to a knee jerk "you're open sourcing
| wrong" reaction you're gonna get from a community of people
| who are accustomed to it all being done in a certain way
| (namely, that it's generally open and copyable without
| interaction with -gasp- humans). You're doing fine and your
| responses have been perfect imo.
| dirtybirdnj wrote:
| I agree with the hamburglar (lol) you did awesome work and
| you owe the internet nothing. the 3d printing community is
| rife with "stl please" expectations that everyone wants to
| share everything and it should all be free. Give it away if
| you can, but I think its important to have some value to the
| creative work like this that is done.
|
| > I've shared it for free with every single person who has
| emailed me.
|
| Excited and waiting :) I think it's going to make really cool
| pen plotter art
| nrhrjrjrjtntbt wrote:
| I am not expert but I really like the font. It does a lot for
| such a primitive display. Makes me wonder why we used to have
| those bad 80s 90s alphanumeric LCD displays in most places too
| cheap for pixels when they could have done this.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| There are higher detail versions of these LCD displays like those
| used on the NJ Transit Comet cars:
| https://www.flickr.com/photos/recluse26/286211358/
|
| Should be possible to get a passable @ on those.
| windows2020 wrote:
| That was my first thought as well. I've spent time on those
| cars on the Coast Line. They used to indicate the next stop,
| but it broke at some point. I don't ride much anymore. I'm not
| surprised what's pictured is NJ TRANSIT, the fallback. Would be
| nice to have faster trains someday. Until then, crack a beer
| and enjoy the ride.
| Kylejeong21 wrote:
| i was literally just looking for some kind of font for my
| personal site and this is super cool.
| yawnxyz wrote:
| I would love to build a programmatic version of this font defined
| by an array of shapes (full square, triangle, rounded corner,
| pizza, and notch), and rotations, but I think even that would be
| a somewhat offense of the license, so I'm not going to publish
| it.
|
| An array of those would spell out most of the symbols. Some of
| her characters violate this pattern though so it only
| approximates most of the symbols.
|
| If lilsneddz responds with yes, I'd love to publish the code so
| people can make public interactive displays with her font design.
|
| I think a system like this would make it easier to prototype
| lowercase and other international symbols though!
| lilsneddz wrote:
| Are you joking? this sounds sick. Please go ahead!!! I think I
| need to update my website so it's more clear how open this is,
| haha!
| yawnxyz wrote:
| wait really?? ok!! I thought I would actually build a
| typography editor around it, maybe if you click a cell it
| would rotate symbols and/or orientations. Open source of
| course!
|
| This is what I'll do instead of spending time with family
| over thanksgiving :P
| california-og wrote:
| check out https://fontstruct.com/ and
| https://glyphdrawing.club/ for a few editors that work this
| way (i made glyphdrawing.club). but please make one for
| this!
| yawnxyz wrote:
| wow thank you for sharing!! I'm new to all this but I'm
| clearly finding a new hobby
| hamburglar wrote:
| "I really like fun. So I made my own font editor." --- tom7
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qTBAW-Eh0tM
| yawnxyz wrote:
| learned a ton there
| bcoates wrote:
| "Unlike New York, Chicago or L.A., which each have one, maybe
| two, San Francisco and the greater Bay Area have over two dozen"
|
| Whaaa...? Los Angeles has a whole rat's nest of overlapping
| agencies, (mostly different cities and like 4 kinds of train for
| some reason)
| kingkongjaffa wrote:
| This reminded me of https://aresluna.org/the-hardest-working-
| font-in-manhattan/
|
| prev hn discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43053419
| jdnier wrote:
| I had not heard of Glyphs, the tool the author used. I used to
| use Fontographer long ago.
|
| https://glyphsapp.com/learn/recommendation:get-started
|
| It's a great article!
| antidamage wrote:
| Also a Fontographer user here. That's how you know you did font
| design in the last 90s.
| waiwai933 wrote:
| I'm struggling with deciphering the punctuation symbol between
| the PS and the |. Any help? (Possibly the @ symbol but my reading
| of the text suggests there isn't a glyph for it, but maybe I'm
| wrong there)
| tylervigen wrote:
| I think it is @ given the context of the next paragraph, where
| they complain that @ doesn't work well in the grid.
| antidamage wrote:
| I would invite everyone to try selecting text on the linked page
| to see the most low-key awesome effect ever.
| cmdoptesc wrote:
| Wow, the props to the author for digging _deep_!
|
| > Looking inside of the display, I found labels identifying the
| make and model. The signs were designed and manufactured by
| Trans-Lite, Inc., a company based in Milford, Connecticut that
| specialised in transport signage from 1959 until its acquisition
| by the Nordic firm Teknoware in 2012. After lots of amateur
| detective work, and with the help from an anonymous Reddit user
| in a Connecticut community group, I was connected with Gary
| Wallberg, Senior Engineer at Trans-Lite and the person
| responsible for the design of these very signs back in 1999.
|
| Few years back, we had a work thread about this exact Muni Metro
| font and the designers brought up segmented types. We never got
| as far as the author in finding the source, but did bring up
| other systems with similar typefaces.
|
| NYC has their own called R142A:
| https://www.nyctransitforums.com/topic/55346-r142a-mosaic-lc...
|
| And here's one inspired by Spain's transit system:
| https://aresluna.org/segmented-type/
| kccqzy wrote:
| R142A is simply the name of a type of subway car. The NYCT
| identifies the car by contract number which is increasing
| (bigger number means more recent). The latest is R211 in three
| variants (R211T, R211S, R211A).
| cmdoptesc wrote:
| Thanks for the correction!
| rob74 wrote:
| Interesting! Since Ansaldo Breda is an Italian company, I would
| have thought that the signs were European as well. Similar LCD
| "mosaic" displays were pretty widespread over here until a few
| years ago (e.g. in some platform signs on the Munich U-Bahn:
| https://www.u-bahn-muenchen.de/betrieb/zugzielanzeiger/, scroll
| to "LCD-Digitalanzeiger'), but they have all been replaced with
| standard TFT flat screens (or in the case of line displays on
| vehicles, LED based dot matrix displays) since...
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| Yeah I'm surprised too - Breda spent a metric fuckton of
| money bribing Willie Brown so that the city would buy those
| damn things. Lots of European kit on them (like the
| Scharfenberg couplers), most of it never worked right.
| runroader wrote:
| The segmented type site that lets you see a bunch of different
| options reminded me of Posy's YouTube video where he
| investigates a bunch of weird options for these:
| https://youtu.be/RTB5XhjbgZA?si=y7npP6KfXlOGNoHZ
| 98codes wrote:
| New Jersey Transit trains use something similar to this, but
| with many more segments
|
| https://www.flickr.com/photos/recluse26/286211358/
| pclark wrote:
| Are the light rail displays ever sold anywhere?
| 1121redblackgo wrote:
| Thoroughly dank. Very well done and interesting write up.
| everdev wrote:
| This is difital archiving and will be absorbed by AI and seen by
| aliens in another galaxy thousands of years from now in a borg
| cube.
| kelnos wrote:
| Ah that's so neat! I've noticed some of those details before, in
| how some of the segments of the display are shaped in various
| ways that lets them draw characters with smooth edges, in ways
| you wouldn't be able to do with a display where the segments'
| shapes are homogeneous.
|
| As soon as I saw the first photo, though, I was a little sad to
| realize that it was of the old-style trains that are being phased
| out. The author notes this near the end, but I think that the
| trains are actually completely phased out as of a few weeks ago,
| maybe even before this article was posted.
| lilsneddz wrote:
| They were officially phased out on the 12th of November, with
| their final trips being on the J line.
| pietroppeter wrote:
| Great work! As a side track, it led me to dive into the history
| of the manufacturing company of Breda trains. Originally founded
| in Milan late 1800s by Ernesto Breda for locomotives, expanded in
| the war products during the wars, and went through
| nationalization, fusion to become AnsaldoBreda and later bough by
| Japanese to become Hitachi Rail Italy.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitachi_Rail_Italy
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| Later to get banned from bidding on the contract for the
| replacement vehicles because the trains were so mediocre
| (although somehow still better than the earlier Boeings) and
| the company so brazenly corrupt.
|
| Meanwhile SF runs 1800s-early 1900s era Milan trams on their
| heritage line. Not built by Breda, because of course.
| thenoblesunfish wrote:
| Fun! Would love a "style 4" where you see the thin lines e.g.
| within the solid squares.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| Since the article compares the SF "and the Bay Area" to LA, they
| might be surprised to find that the greater LA area has 70+
| public transit organizations. Just to name a few, LA County
| Transit Authority, Big Blue Bus, Long Beach Transit, Torrence
| Transit, LADOT, OCTA, ...
| shahzaibmushtaq wrote:
| > Life is so rich when ease and efficiency are not the measure.
|
| This is it, and I really like the CSS effects when
| highlighting/selecting words, sentences and paragraphs
| stevage wrote:
| It would be interesting to see a version with the grid line gaps
| included.
| moydinjon wrote:
| Hi
| midito wrote:
| Wow! Impressive process, outstanding result. Kudos
| rldjbpin wrote:
| Also check out Helvetica and its use in subways of the world -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2372894
| knorker wrote:
| Why is the font size on this page ENORMOUS and blocking the
| ability to make it reasonable? Seems more than a bit user
| hostile.
|
| I guess I could try finding some reader mode extension, but the
| effort/reward promise is not high enough to bother.
| monday_ wrote:
| I really liked the Hotspur font shown here, but can't find it for
| either download or sale anywhere. Perhaps someone knows if it is
| at all available?
| lilsneddz wrote:
| Hotspur is a custom font for Bell Shakespeare's brand and isn't
| commercially available.
| aemoron wrote:
| Reminds me of the old Finnish metro station display reverse
| engineering http://sooda.dy.fi/2013/8/19/metro-station-display-
| reverse-e...
| danilo_z_j wrote:
| Very cool!
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