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simply Dan
Guest
That vintage sign is really beautiful.
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Darkstar416
Guest
Couldn't agree more. I've long thought the TTC should go to a 2-font system.
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wyliepoon
Guest
^ A two-font system is good, but I don't like the choice of Arial/Helvetica as the font to go with the TTC font, since Arial looks too "new" to complement the TTC font. This was why I found the above sign at the Opera House strange.
"Geometric" versions of sans-serifs (which the TTC font is based on) such as Avant Garde, Century Gothic and Futura seem to fit in with the TTC font well, and they are easy enough to read to be used from Best Buy to IKEA to Hockey Night in Canada.
If the TTC uses that kind of font, TTC literature would look like childrens' books!
PDF showing IKEA shuttle bus route between Leslie Stn and the North York store
"Geometric" versions of sans-serifs (which the TTC font is based on) such as Avant Garde, Century Gothic and Futura seem to fit in with the TTC font well, and they are easy enough to read to be used from Best Buy to IKEA to Hockey Night in Canada.
If the TTC uses that kind of font, TTC literature would look like childrens' books!
PDF showing IKEA shuttle bus route between Leslie Stn and the North York store
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Archivistower
Guest
Couldn't agree more. I've long thought the TTC should go to a 2-font system. I don't know, have you considered what might happen?
"Guys, we need a second font."
"How about we get Bob in accounting to pick it, he's the one what one got us the line on all those remaindered tiles"
.....
"Bob said if Times New Roman is good enough for the default for microsoft, it's good enough for the TTC".
"Guys, we need a second font."
"How about we get Bob in accounting to pick it, he's the one what one got us the line on all those remaindered tiles"
.....
"Bob said if Times New Roman is good enough for the default for microsoft, it's good enough for the TTC".
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adma
Guest
How about a Data 70 font?
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spmarshall
Guest
Wingdings 3. Just because!
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livesquid
Guest
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samsonyuen
Guest
I like the fonts and all, but does it seem like the sign is HUGE? And is it just me or is there a lot of white space?
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adma
Guest
Over the course of the day, I've been pondering over what these'll be replacing, i.e. the "lozenge", the curved rectangle. True, the old "profiled" logo signs a la Davisville yard are definitely cherishable, but the lozenge (more of a 60s B-D era thing) is epigrammatic--and unsung. (And I'm deliberately writing this off the top of my head, without referring to Transit Toronto whether they've anything written on the subject.) And I noticed these three types at St. Patrick...
First, there's the "classic" lozenge. Moulded plastic within a metal frame, perched upon a stainless steel pole or hung from a right-angled curved version of the same. (There's even a sort of harmony between the lozenge shape and the form of a transit vehicle, or the Y-U-S line looping around Union, etc.) Within the lozenge is, in classic red + cream, the TTC "SUBWAY" logo, i.e. with the TTC letters in the top of the shield, and the overlaid horizontal ribbon inscribed with SUBWAY. Simple, elegant, and effective.
Then, a step down from that, there's the post-1980, i.e. "post-cream" version, where it's a standard generic red + white-era TTC logo, no overlaid "subway" ribbon or anything. But the general form of the sign--even down to the moulded plastic--remains more or less the same.
And a step down from *that* is the version with the generic logo *and* the lackluster mixed-case Arial "Subway" below it. And it's now a flat plastic panel, no moulding, no 3-dimensionality. Even the latter-day stainless steel supports seem like pale, spindly shadows of the originals (to say nothing of the "hanging" version where clumsy perpendiculars replace the right-angled arc).
Compared to all this, while the new-version graphics are good, the mode of display--a rectangular light box on a pole--is more banal than it could be. And it's definitely an improvement over what the lozenge has became over the past quarter century; relative to the original, though, it's ambivalent at best (except maybe from a graphic/readability standpoint; but, ought not the symbol be enough? While we love to worship the classic subway font, it doesn't mean we *must* fetishistically use it each and every time...)
Okay, now. Now that I've written that, I'd better check Transit Toronto and see how whatever they have to say compares to my current off-the-cuff sizing-up...
First, there's the "classic" lozenge. Moulded plastic within a metal frame, perched upon a stainless steel pole or hung from a right-angled curved version of the same. (There's even a sort of harmony between the lozenge shape and the form of a transit vehicle, or the Y-U-S line looping around Union, etc.) Within the lozenge is, in classic red + cream, the TTC "SUBWAY" logo, i.e. with the TTC letters in the top of the shield, and the overlaid horizontal ribbon inscribed with SUBWAY. Simple, elegant, and effective.
Then, a step down from that, there's the post-1980, i.e. "post-cream" version, where it's a standard generic red + white-era TTC logo, no overlaid "subway" ribbon or anything. But the general form of the sign--even down to the moulded plastic--remains more or less the same.
And a step down from *that* is the version with the generic logo *and* the lackluster mixed-case Arial "Subway" below it. And it's now a flat plastic panel, no moulding, no 3-dimensionality. Even the latter-day stainless steel supports seem like pale, spindly shadows of the originals (to say nothing of the "hanging" version where clumsy perpendiculars replace the right-angled arc).
Compared to all this, while the new-version graphics are good, the mode of display--a rectangular light box on a pole--is more banal than it could be. And it's definitely an improvement over what the lozenge has became over the past quarter century; relative to the original, though, it's ambivalent at best (except maybe from a graphic/readability standpoint; but, ought not the symbol be enough? While we love to worship the classic subway font, it doesn't mean we *must* fetishistically use it each and every time...)
Okay, now. Now that I've written that, I'd better check Transit Toronto and see how whatever they have to say compares to my current off-the-cuff sizing-up...
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wyliepoon
Guest
Here's the font idea I mentioned earlier "photoshopped" (actually Corel-drew) onto the photo of the sign.
The font is called Odessa LET. Even though it may not match perfectly with the TTC font, it still seems to blend in better than Arial, in my opinion.
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SD2
Guest
^Actually, I think I prefer Arial.
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adma
Guest
Arial's more visually emphatic--also, in its unfortunate typographic-Stockholm-syndrome way, it's already been mass-familiarized as an "alternate" TTC font...