I would like to know what kind of font (or fonts perhaps?) are 
used for airport terminal, railway station etc. signs?
There's usually a black background and the lettering is either in 
white or yellow (or both).

-- 
Regards,
KPT

KPT wrote:

> I would like to know what kind of font (or fonts perhaps?) are 
> used for airport terminal, railway station etc. signs?
> There's usually a black background and the lettering is either in 
> white or yellow (or both).

I searched the web and found a few pictures to illustrate the
kind of signs I'm talking about:

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-603471.html?searchterm=airport+signs&anyorall=all&search_group=all&orient=all&
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-461143.html?searchterm=airport+signs&anyorall=all&search_group=all&orient=all&
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-557619.html?searchterm=airport+signs&anyorall=all&search_group=all&orient=all&
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-557610.html?searchterm=airport+signs&anyorall=all&search_group=all&orient=all&



-- 
Regards,
KPT

Also sprach/Thus spake KPT:
> KPT wrote:
>=20
>> I would like to know what kind of font (or fonts perhaps?) are
>> used for airport terminal, railway station etc. signs?
>> There's usually a black background and the lettering is either in
>> white or yellow (or both).
>=20
> I searched the web and found a few pictures to illustrate the
> kind of signs I'm talking about:

The English name for this sort of fonts is Sans serif.

Andreas

KPT schrieb:

>> I would like to know what kind of font (or fonts perhaps?) are 
>> used for airport terminal, railway station etc. signs?
>> There's usually a black background and the lettering is either in 
>> white or yellow (or both).

You could extract a good crop of a few words and upload it here:
http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/ to have it identified.
If you have a good variety of chars you could also try to identify it
here: http://www.identifont.com/index.html

I saw a documentary about making public transit signs. This is called
"signage". There are two very famous designers, can't remember them.
Extremely interesting stuff. They talked about Frutiger and Gill Sans
being very famous fonts for signs.
You could google for "signage", maybe together with "fonts", and you
will find many interesting sites.

-- 
Super Newsreader: http://www.40tude.com/dialog/

"KPT" <----@--.--> wrote in message news:434a937f$1@news.broadpark.no...
>I would like to know what kind of font (or fonts perhaps?) are used for 
>airport terminal, railway station etc. signs?
> There's usually a black background and the lettering is either in white or 
> yellow (or both).
>
> -- 
> Regards,
> KPT

Hi K,

Take a look at Anziegen Grotesk (Standard here in the US) and ITC Shannon, 
used as the the Shannon Airport at Dublin

Stu 

KPT wrote:
> KPT wrote:
>
> > I would like to know what kind of font (or fonts perhaps?) are
> > used for airport terminal, railway station etc. signs? ...

Spanish airports as above seem to use News Gothic, I remember seeing
the same style in Barcelona. The other example is Helvetica. As another
poster mentioned, the Frutiger typeface found early fame as a bespoke
design for Charles De Gaulle Airport
[http://www.linotype.com/7-1122-7/frutiger.html ,
http://www.linotype.com/7-31-7-12662/charles-de-gaulleairport.html].

The design of type for signage, especially roadside signage, is a very
specialised art. Eye magazine had an excellent article on Jock Kinneir
& Margaret Calvert's UK road signage work (eminent experts in signage
typography)... but I cannot find the article text [abstract
http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature.php?id=17&fid=115]. However some
reproductions from it are here:
http://www.aadownloads.com/web/Kinnear3/Kinnear2.html
Also see their book, "Words and buildings: The art of public
lettering".

Keith Tam is a young designer to watch in this field; his "Arrival"
design is functional and quite beautiful:
http://keithtam.net/types.html

--Toby

> 
> 
> -- 
> Regards,
> KPT

toby wrote:
> KPT wrote:
> > KPT wrote:
> >
> > > I would like to know what kind of font (or fonts perhaps?) are
> > > used for airport terminal, railway station etc. signs? ...
>
> ...
> The design of type for signage, especially roadside signage, is a very
> specialised art.

I should also mention Phil Baines' site,
http://www.publiclettering.org.uk/Roadtrafficsigns.php

> 
> --Toby
> 
> > 
> > 
> > -- 
> > Regards,
> > KPT

KPT wrote:
> I would like to know what kind of font (or fonts perhaps?) are
> used for airport terminal, railway station etc. signs?
> There's usually a black background and the lettering is either in
> white or yellow (or both).

What part of the world are you asking about?  I can tell you that in
the US, fonts used for these things are not quite the same as shown in
the european examples discussed so far in this thread, and these
typographical conventions probably differ further in other regions of
the world.

Also sprach/Thus spake Stuart B. Henlis:

> Take a look at Anziegen Grotesk (Standard here in the US) and ITC
> Shannon, used as the the Shannon Airport at Dublin

"An" means "at", "Ziegen" means "goats".
"Anzeigen" means "Ads".
"Grotesk" is the German equivalent to "Gothic" (sans serif):

HTH :-)

Andreas

VidTheKid wrote:
> KPT wrote:
>> I would like to know what kind of font (or fonts perhaps?) are
>> used for airport terminal, railway station etc. signs?
>> There's usually a black background and the lettering is either in
>> white or yellow (or both).
> 
> What part of the world are you asking about?

Actually I thought there was an international standard to this, 
but I see I'm mistaken.
I'll see if I can find any freeware equivelants of the commercial 
fonts suggested elsewhere in this thread.

I assume that putting the font in the right context with the 
right colours has a lot to do with it, in addition to finding the 
right font of course.
I would like to add some "airport terminal" and "travel" feel to 
a website, which is why I started this thread.


-- 
Regards,
KPT