Hey, there! Log in / Register
If Boston were a font, what font would it be?
By adamg on Mon, 02/02/2015 - 11:13pm
City Councilor Matt O'Malley (Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury) says a world-class city needs a municipal font it can call its own.
On Wednesday, O'Malley will formally introduce the idea of developing a common font that could be used in "signage networks on our transit systems, on emergency and police vehicles and on city materials such as trash receptacles."
He notes that Chatanooga, TN has its own font.
In his request for a hearing on the idea, O'Malley continues:
The amount of interactions we have with text and signage everyday can increase our attachment to a streamlined font as a 'piece' of the city. ... Boston is a hub for innovation, creativity and design, as well a city that embraces its heritage; and a city font will inspire collaboration between designers, art students, historians and Boston residents.
The council meeting begins at noon in its fifth-floor chambers in City Hall.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
If Boston were a font ...
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/im-comic-sans-asshole
WHAT ARE YOU RUNNING FROM?
WHAT ARE YOU RUNNING FROM? THE DISEASE IS INSIDE OF YOU
We have a winner
End of story. But that's only assuming we decide we WANT one font. And we don't. We're a city with a great deal of diversity and differing opinions about everything. We are also the Cradle of Liberty. So a cacophony of fonts is just fine. It represents us well.
But if we're forced to choose a font, it should definitely be a stupid one (Comic Sans), because the plans being made for Boston recently are all looking like jokes straight out of The Onion.
For our transit and our Olympic dreams
Comic Sans.
Wingdings
Because that's what we all are if we spend millions to replace all our signs with a new font.
(But you can bet Councilor Matt O'Malley has a family member or friend waiting in the wings with a print or sign company ready to roll)
I was going to say Wingdings
I was going to say Wingdings because fuck you, you're just supposed to know what the sign says. But your reason works too.
More likely
More likely that some relative is a branding consultant, eager to bill the city a half-million bucks to design a new font.
Do you hear that faint call in the distance -- "like a business"?
Is this really what we need
Is this really what we need to be worrying about right now
design is important
Some attention to design and branding is warranted. Look at the city's logo for instance. It looks like it was designed in the 19th century and it can't be perceived at small sizes. If you're partnering with the city and you want to put their logo in a row of other small logos for the other groups you're partnering with, it won't work.
get rid of the seal on street signs
Takes up space and looks like a round white smudge.
Signage in Boston is confused clutter. Needs a system.
I have no problem with
I have no problem with focusing on the big issues and occasionally looking at lesser ones too. People are capable of doing more than one thing at a time. I doubt the folks that handle the city's letterhead are working on snow removal regardless so this isn't distracting from anything. O'Malley is known for being good on constituent services as well.
Antiqua
It's old-fashioned, a bit pretentious, and hard for people who aren't used to it to understand.
When's that hearing?
You mean this Wednesday at noon? Nope, nothing else going on then.
I wish Matt OMalley was less concerned about branding and more
I wish Matt OMalley was less concerned about branding and more about delivering on the things that matter to people who choose city living.
I keep voting
Against him but we need more people to catch on to the fact that a city councilor sould be acomplishing more than water fountains and fonts.
O'Malley got the most votes
O'Malley got the most votes ever for a councilor last election so your view is an outlier if you live in his district. Check his twitter feed. He's been publicly shaming businesses that don't shovel after the snow and walked his whole district to do it. Guy works hard and voted against the pay raise to boot.
fixed that for ya
"walked his whole district to do it"
Had an intern walk a street or two in his district.
Fixed that for you. No single person could even remotely hope to walk an entire district, especially in this mess.
If any person could ...
I'd put money on O'Malley. He's a marathon runner.
But, yeah, did he really walk the entire district during/after the recent storms? Or was it during that Lewis-and-Clark thing the city announced a few months ago?
His Twitter
Feed from last Saturday, I think, showed his walk from JP to WR. It was a pretty long walk in that cold. He did a briefer walk yesterday. I give him credit for being out there.
He wasnt on my
Street, actually i haven't seen much of him in Westie for quite some time now.
So
They've officially decided to move away from the Jokerman on the Big Belly trash cans? Boston Shines 365!
Funnily enough, Gizmodo just ran an article about municipal fonts. I wonder if that's where they got the idea.
If Boston were a corporation
If Boston were a corporation, it would have an official font for all its communications. But it isn't. It's a city.
futura black - obviously
The font that you know and love from the old Boston Police logos - why they ever gave up such an iconic thing I'll never know, it'd be like the Chicago PD losing the checkerboard.
http://fontsinuse.com/uses/2629/classic-boston-police-logo-and-cruiser
That's nice for a short
That's nice for a short snippet of text ("Boston Police") which is essentially a logo, but I don't think I would want to see that on signs with lots of text, e.g., highway signs, the subway station signs, and so on. The MBTA currently uses Helvetica (and Eurostile for some reason at Alewife), and the AASHTO mandates something called Highway Gothic for highway signs. These fonts are designed for quick readability at a distance.
How about
picking a font for readability at a distance, as a first priority, at least for directional and informational signage? That's how we wound up with Helvetica (invented for the Swiss national railways) and Frutiger (found on airport signs). There's Clearview, too, but we don't want it to look *too* much like a highway exit sign. There's Univers, and DIN 1451.
Boston has long had the reputation of being hard to navigate, largely due to poor or nonexistent signage. It's been getting better over the last 15 years, but it's far from fixed. And it's inexcusable in a city that derives so much of its economy from tourism, college students, and other people otherwise unfamiliar with the area.
The days of Clearview are numbered
Based on the results of the most recent TTI study, which - unlike the initial, and very biased, 'Clearview is great' research - actually involved having subjects view REAL highway signs while driving in REAL vehicles, FHWA is no longer granting interim approvals for cities and states to use the font. It is expected that FHWA will soon be recinding those interim approvals they have previously granted as well.
The lesson here is simple - If the City wants to
wastespend time and money on implementing a new 'unified' font, then they would be wise to do research before hand to demonstrate that such a font is necessary. And just saying 'well, that's what busineses do all the time' is an insufficient reason.Hwy Gothic
FYI, Highway Gothic is the font that preceded Clearview. Interestingly, that wiki entry states that "Massachusetts MUTCD expressly forbids Clearview," too.
Boston City Council Communications/documents format lacking.
City Council Communications are lacking, not only the font used, but the formats make what Council Communications/documents there are less accessible for scanning with online search mechanisms. Many Council Communications/documents are scanned as photos so that the words in the Council Communications can't be searched for particular content. Folks with low vision are blocked from many Council Communications/documents for lack of thought to format.
As an aside
I requested the stenographic record for the Jan 14th City Council meeting. They were prompt about sending it to me, but my computer has "no application to open this file."
My computer directs me to the app store to choose an application. My search yields "no results."
The city is consistently and chronically inaccessible, but thank goodness, I now know the names of the plow drivers in my neighborhood!!!
text/plain
A plain, US-ASCII or UTF-8 *.txt file is too hard for them to produce? Or a PDF?
Why isn't Boston City Council using Plover !?...
Why isn't Boston City Council using Plover !?... pronounced like the bird rhyming with lover
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#Plover
What type of file is it?
That is, what is the extension (e.g .doc, .pdf, .txt) ?
Here's my guess: The file had NO extension when they sent it to you, but it is actually either a PDF or .doc (docx). Try changing the filename to add .pdf to the end and I bet your computer will be able to open it.
Additional File to convert to Plain Text. Contract Article 2.3
At http://www.cityofboston.gov/contact/?id=12 the Additional File needed to covert to Plain Text the .sgstn StenoGraph StenoNote format can be requested by indicating that the Additional File needed to convert to Plain Text comes under City Contract Article 2.3 "Performance" "2.3 City is entitled to ownership and possession of all deliverables purchased or developed with Contract funds. All work papers, reports, questionnaires and other written materials prepared or collected by the Contractor in the course of completing the work to be performed under this Contract shall at all times be the exclusive property of the City."
http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1263415-stenographer-contract-fy1...
Boston City Councilor Wu is conversant with the difficulty of the format. Advocating for Plain Text in City Council Communications is a greater concern than font, particularly for folks with low vision and for ESL English as a Second Language folks using translator mechanisms, for example at https://translate.google.com/
Chattanooga also has
Chattanooga also has municipal gigabit broadband (about 50x Comcast's average speed). I'd rather have that than a stupid city font.
City font?
You gotta be kidding me. How much are we paying these jerks to think of crap like this again???
According to Councilor Tito
According to Councilor Tito Jackson not enough to keep the heat turned up on cold days like this
Handicapped friendly Dyslexie font
Supposedly easier to read for those with dyslexia, and others getting lost, or attempting to drive on rail tracks.
Dyslexie
http://www.dyslexiefont.com/en/dyslexia-font/
I admit, I like this idea *ducks*
But I also went to, and enjoyed, a movie about Helvetica.
Helvetica: The Movie was pretty good, but I much preferred its
horror sequel, Helvetica II: The Arialing.
This is the ticket!
DS Celtic-1
Here's an idea....
I realize that there are those who have a greater artistic aesthetic than I, however.....
Here's an idea, why don't you devote a large part of your workweek pressuring state lawmakers to "FIX THE FREAK'N MBTA". I'm not talking about expanding it to Somerville or the Commuter Rail to New Bedford, but working to bring it up to second world standards so people don't have to spend 3-4 hours commuting home.
Secondly, perhaps we could spend a little bit of time learning why a massive city piece of infrastructure, the Long Island bridge that provided a path to a place that provides small respite to the down and out, many of them with serious mental illness. It might be a nice idea to build some infrastructure that helps the least among us.
Finally, work to shut down the Olympics boondogle. Lois, who hiked from Central Square to South Station last night to spend 1.5 hours waiting for a commuter train to Quahog mentioned how lovely the Common was with the snow. Sadly widely used s public treasure is slated to be taken away for a few years as construction ramps up.
Just a few idea, Matt
Lipstick on a pig
Fixing the MBTA is rife with failure. Lots of money could get spent, and nothing could actually be accomplished, and what company bureaucrat wants that on their résumé?
On the other hand, replacing all the Helvetica signs with something new and shiny will let the MBTA spokesmouth stick his mug in front of the cameras and crow about how the T is successfully moving forward and serving their customers and blah blah blah. You'll still have late, broken-down trains that catch on fire occasionally, but you'll be able to ogle the new Comic Sans signs while you wait!
It's like all those new electronic signboards and upgraded audio systems. These were simple, discrete projects that seem to make the T look all nice and new and shiny (and probably made lots of dough for the company who sold the equipment to the T)—and all they really do is let me know exactly how f***ing late the next train is going to be.
WWCD?
World-class cities are all measured against the same high bar and must ask themselves: What would Chattanooga do?
One font? You gotta be kidding
Everybody knows Beacon Hill needs its own, historically correct font.
Simple
Obviously the font on this sign.
http://i.imgur.com/FgMZ4.jpg
Make sure it's open licensed
Boston also wants to be known for innovation, so hopefully someone will ensure the font is under an open license - so constituents and citizens alike can use it as well - and not a proprietary license.
- Shane, licensing geek
Chattanooga
Chattanooga also has its own public utilities that sell internet, cable, and electricity at a far lower price than we pay.
Conspiracy
Am I paranoid? I think Marty is getting someone to do his dirty work to accelerate the replacement of signs with Menino's name on them.
New font versus Constituent Service?
Fonts win.
When I asked for help from Matt's office concerning the jet engine noise generated by English High there were a couple of emails and then his office dropped the issue.
When my house was nearly destroyed did Matt show up? An aid? Has his office called me once to ask how the repairs are going? NO.
From my experience Councilor O'Malley has provided zero constituent service. Holding neighborhood meetings at J.P. Licks that lead to no action and sponsoring immaterial legislation and spending money on tweaking letters so that we can, Look - that's the Boston font! is meanginless.
I remember when Matt ran for a city wide seat. He lost that election. I voted for him the first time that he ran in J.P. I can not in good concience vote for him again.
If I see proof, evidence of constituent service then I could consider voting for him again. But so far the record I see is a lot of talk, meetings, smoke and mirrors. But no measurable, substantial actions that actually help the people he is paid to represent and assist.
Are callers' data entered into software and flagged?...
Are City Council callers' data entered into software and flagged?... callers to be sidelined, potential campaign contributors!
Please call the office
Hello --
I typically don't respond to anonymous comments, but I wanted to apologize if you felt we didn't offer adequate constituent service attention. Providing top-notch constituent service is what I take great pride in. It seems we didn't do that here, and I hope to make that right.
In terms of the HVAC noise from English, I did work closely with Rep. Liz Malia and BPS facilities several summers ago to address and rectify that issue. I know they were able to offer some sound-proofing.
In terms of your home, I'm not sure as to what you are referring, but if there's anyway I could be helpful, please don't hesitate to call my office at 617-635-4220.
Best,
Matt O'Malley
The trouble with new fonts
Old fonts used to only need 100 or so printable characters. Multiply that times three for bold and italics. But today with all this emoji crap and UTF-16 you have to support a lot more characters in your font like short-hyphens and fancy quotes. This is no small task for font designers.
When you open a web page and see a 'square' character in the middle of a paragraph, that means the paragraph was probably written in an editor like MS Word using a "big" font like Arial and then copied to a web site styled with a "small" font like Verdana. The characters included in the big font and missing from the small font get rendered as nonprintable characters, which are often displayed as a black square.
Stick to the fonts already available, and focus your effort on picking the best font for the situation. The ideal fonts are totally different for small text on a screen, big text on a screen, small/big text on paper, and text for signage.
Plain Text Council Communications more important than Font !
MOTIONS, ORDERS AND RESOLUTIONS: 0280 Councilor O'Malley offered the following: Order for a hearing to explore the utility and adoption of an official municipal font.
CITY OF BOSTON
IN CITY COUNCIL
[Seal. City of Boston]
http://meetingrecords.cityofboston.gov/sirepub/cache/2/enov1shmu5t0yif2b...
ORDER OF CITY COUNCILOR MATT O’MALLEY
WHEREAS: In 2013 Chattanooga, Tennessee became the first municipality in the United States to adopt an official font; it has already been incorporated into the city’s website, out of state tourism billboards and its public library; and
WHEREAS: The City of Chattanooga and other municipalities such as Eindhoven, in the Netherlands, and Lisbon, Portugal have utilized the concept of a city font in order to reflect the identity, history and brand of a municipality; for example, Lisbon’s “LX Type” is based on its signature criss-crossing tram patterns, Chattanooga’s “Chatype” takes cues from the Cherokee alphabet; and
WHEREAS: There are many potential uses for an official city font for Boston: signage networks on our transit systems, on emergency and police vehicles and on city materials such as trash receptacles; and
WHEREAS: The amount of interactions we have with text and signage everyday can increase our attachment to a streamlined font as a “piece” of the city; and
WHEREAS: Boston is a hub for innovation, creativity and design, as well a city that embraces its heritage; and
WHEREAS: A city font will inspire collaboration between designers, art students, historians and Boston residents; THEREFORE BE IT
ORDERED: The Boston City Council, hereby assembled, orders a hearing to explore the utility and adoption of an official municipal font.
Filed in City Council: January 30, 2015
http://meetingrecords.cityofboston.gov/sirepub/cache/2/enov1shmu5t0yif2b...
ORDER OF BUSINESS FOR MATTERS PRESENTED TO THE CITY CLERK PRIOR TO 10:00 A.M. ON MONDAY FEBRUARY 2, 2015 FOR CONSIDERATION BY THE CITY COUNCIL AT A REGULAR MEETING ON WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2015 AT 12:00 P.M.