Clearview
UniversalHub pointed out another Citizens Connect complaint about the new Clearview street signs. This one made me think though, because the person said:
The capital A is out of proportion to the lower case letters, and it is visually jarring.
They go on to say the all-caps signs are more pleasant, etc. Most commenters, and perhaps the author, seem to believe the complaint is about lowercase letters. Some of the commenters claim that new MUTCD rules require the capital letter followed by lowercase letters, so this sign is what research has shown to be the most legible.
What none of the commenters point out is that the complaint is accurate, the letters are out of proportion. I extract this image from wikipedia:
As you can see, at a consistent font size, the lowercase l should be taller than most capital letters. In the street sign at the top, it is smaller. This is why these signs look so messed up. I went back to a past complaint and found the same thing:
It seems the inconsistent font size is the problem, not the lowercase letters. If we look at a Clearview sign with consistent font sizes and lower case letters, we see a major difference (again, from wikipedia):
That looks much better. The lowercase letters are properly proportional to the capital letters in line with the design of the typeface, no weird changes in font size midway through words. I think these complaints would disappear if Boston would just use a single font size for the street name.
