US Stop Signs

**Soquili** · 05 February 2006, 03:52 PM

John Clements had a question about adding to the clipart gallery http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthread.php?t=20112 Specifically adding to the Roadsigns folder.

This started me thinking about how road signs have changed here in the United States, within my lifetime. I found a site that has some very good information and images of road signs. I thought I remembered the Stop signs being yellow instead of red in colour, and it turns out my old memory wasn't playing tricks on me (as it often does

). Here's a link to one of the pages http://www.trafficsign.us/r1.html

I made a couple of stop signs in Xara using the specifications I found on the above web site. I scaled them down so they fit within one Xara page. I also added some named colours using values found on several different web sites that had traffic sign specifications.

The fonts have been converted to shapes for those that don't have the ones I used. The ones used are shareware fonts available from Ray Larabie. The font name is Blue Highway, they can be found from several sites. Do a search on Google for Blue Highway and you will find many sites to choose from. Another series of fonts that are free for personal use and hobbiest are named RoadGeek, there are many varieties available that offer shapes, arrows, and symbols in addition to the ones with letters, numbers, and punctuation.

The official fonts used for traffic signs is Highway Gothic and it is available from several sites for about $65 USD. Another font beginning to be used is named Clearview. I did not find any sites that offer Clearview at this time.

**jclements** · 05 February 2006, 04:13 PM

Bill,

This is great.

Have you done many signs in Xara?

If not, would you want to work together in compiling a library of signs?

I am bogged down now with significant deadlines, but maybe in 4 or 5 weeks I'd be available.

John

Email me on the side if you wish.

**Soquili** · 05 February 2006, 04:49 PM

John,

I am working on some other US road signs and would like to work with you as time permits. I have several projects at work that will require a lot of my time as well.

Supplimental signs associated with the Stop sign, 4-WAY and ALL-WAY are some I am trying to get so rounded corners will scale without distortion. Same for the triangular Yield sign (both the current red and the old yellow versions).

**RTK** · 05 February 2006, 06:29 PM

I love signs... I started a whole bunch of them last year, but got distracted by other things. Ok... it's a bit off-topic - but they are signs made in Xara X.

Warning signs - http://www.ristoklint.com/warning-si...ng-signs-1.htm

Info signs - http://www.ristoklint.com/info-signs-1/info-signs-1.htm

Stop signs - http://www.ristoklint.com/stop-signs-1/stop-signs-1.htm

Not all great... but it amuses me, which was the main purpose.

**Egg Bramhill** · 05 February 2006, 08:08 PM

Here's one for you Risto. An image search on Yahoo for road signs pulls up some great photographs and images. One on an Indian site has a sign for Tonga Prohibited. What's a Tonga?
Egg

**mikeengles** · 05 February 2006, 08:22 PM

Hello
A Tonga is a mode of transport.
It is a horse drawn cart with two wheels.
Pretty similar to what is called Dog Cart in Victorian Britain.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20041015/jplus.htm

Mike Engles

**Egg Bramhill** · 06 February 2006, 04:05 AM

Thanks Mike.
I've used these in Karachi, but never knew they were called Tongas.
Egg

**gwpriester** · 06 February 2006, 12:38 PM

The various warning signs I remember growing up with did not have reflective paint for the letters but used clear glass marbles that reflected the light. I don't recall ever seeing a yellow stop sign. Maybe that was a regional thing?

Gary

**Soquili** · 06 February 2006, 02:29 PM

Hi Gary,

I remember the glass marbles being used on warning signs.

The colour of stop signs varied a lot from state to state, the use of the yellow stop signs began in the Mississippi Valley and eastern United States during the 1920s. Sign makers did not have a durable red paint until the early 1950s, before that a red sign would fade to pink within a couple of weeks and become white within a month.

Road signs in California started to become standarized about 1917 and spread out for about a 200 mile radius of San Francisco. Prior to that it wasn't unusual to see as many as 15 different signs from as many different Automobile Clubs. Disputes over who had jurisdiction over areas were not unusual. The Federal and State governments didn't begin regulating road signs until the 1920s. Before that is was all done by various Automobile Clubs.

**Don Lamb** · 06 February 2006, 02:31 PM

At the risk of carrying coals to Newcastle, have you seen this site: http://charm.cs.uiuc.edu/users/olawl...003/roadsigns/

It has a lot of road signs in both eps and png format. I opened an eps in Illustrator CS2, enlarged it a bit, saved it as Illustrator 8 and then opened it Xtreme. Nice editable vector file to save as xar.