Irish road sign font

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Unbreakify
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Irish road sign font

Post by Unbreakify »

Hello!

Im looking for the irish road sign font.
I thought i would come here considering i cannot find the offical italic variant.
The italic version has a few odd characters rather than the Transport Heavy font.


It would be great to have some help!
Thanks!
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Conekicker
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Re: Irish road sign font

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Irish Traffic Signs Manual, Chapter 2, page 30

https://efb66ec2-0a40-4ea6-a27b-34f2730 ... f2eef1.pdf

Note that it only has 18 letters, not 26.
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Re: Irish road sign font

Post by RichardA626 »

Conekicker wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 09:32 Irish Traffic Signs Manual, Chapter 2, page 30

https://efb66ec2-0a40-4ea6-a27b-34f2730 ... f2eef1.pdf

Note that it only has 18 letters, not 26.
It seems some letters aren't used in Irish Gaelic, even on loan words.
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Conekicker
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Re: Irish road sign font

Post by Conekicker »

RichardA626 wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 10:43
Conekicker wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 09:32 Irish Traffic Signs Manual, Chapter 2, page 30

https://efb66ec2-0a40-4ea6-a27b-34f2730 ... f2eef1.pdf

Note that it only has 18 letters, not 26.
It seems some letters aren't used in Irish Gaelic, even on loan words.
Makes you wonder how they spell Xmas :laugh:
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Chris Bertram
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Re: Irish road sign font

Post by Chris Bertram »

RichardA626 wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 10:43
Conekicker wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 09:32 Irish Traffic Signs Manual, Chapter 2, page 30

https://efb66ec2-0a40-4ea6-a27b-34f2730 ... f2eef1.pdf

Note that it only has 18 letters, not 26.
It seems some letters aren't used in Irish Gaelic, even on loan words.
Also note that both capital A and small a are different, with the "printers a" replaced by round a for the small version and the large version looking like a scaled up version of that.
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Re: Irish road sign font

Post by A303Chris »

Conekicker wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 09:32 Irish Traffic Signs Manual, Chapter 2, page 30

https://efb66ec2-0a40-4ea6-a27b-34f2730 ... f2eef1.pdf

Note that it only has 18 letters, not 26.
Very interesting document and in the hierarchy they have National Primary and National Secondary. Are the former the same as our trunk roads and part of the Strategic Highway Network and the latter as our primary roads managed by local authorities?
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Re: Irish road sign font

Post by Chris Bertram »

A303Chris wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 13:35
Conekicker wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 09:32 Irish Traffic Signs Manual, Chapter 2, page 30

https://efb66ec2-0a40-4ea6-a27b-34f2730 ... f2eef1.pdf

Note that it only has 18 letters, not 26.
Very interesting document and in the hierarchy they have National Primary and National Secondary. Are the former the same as our trunk roads and part of the Strategic Highway Network and the latter as our primary roads managed by local authorities?
National Primary = N1 - N50
National Secondary = N51 - N99

In mapping, the former are usually shown as green, the latter as red. However on the ground both are signed with green signs with yellow numbers. Someone from Ireland will have to speak to the funding arrangements.
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Re: Irish road sign font

Post by A303Chris »

Chris Bertram wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 13:46
A303Chris wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 13:35
Conekicker wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 09:32 Irish Traffic Signs Manual, Chapter 2, page 30

https://efb66ec2-0a40-4ea6-a27b-34f2730 ... f2eef1.pdf

Note that it only has 18 letters, not 26.
Very interesting document and in the hierarchy they have National Primary and National Secondary. Are the former the same as our trunk roads and part of the Strategic Highway Network and the latter as our primary roads managed by local authorities?
National Primary = N1 - N50
National Secondary = N51 - N99

In mapping, the former are usually shown as green, the latter as red. However on the ground both are signed with green signs with yellow numbers. Someone from Ireland will have to speak to the funding arrangements.
Cheers Chris, all very intresting
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Re: Irish road sign font

Post by Nathan_A_RF »

Shame that's an image though, and not a raw file from a working drawing.
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Re: Irish road sign font

Post by bothar »

RichardA626 wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 10:43 It seems some letters aren't used in Irish Gaelic, even on loan words.
Loanwords don't tend to arise on road signs, mostly these are placenames or a limited set of phrases. When you have a loan word that might be on a road sign, a spelling is already established e.g. tacsaí
A303Chris wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 13:35 Very interesting document and in the hierarchy they have National Primary and National Secondary. Are the former the same as our trunk roads and part of the Strategic Highway Network and the latter as our primary roads managed by local authorities?
No, both are funded the Transport Infrastructure Ireland (formerly National Roads Authority), although the local authorities do much of the management
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Re: Irish road sign font

Post by Conekicker »

Nathan_A_RF wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 16:34 Shame that's an image though, and not a raw file from a working drawing.
You could possibly extract at least some of the letters from the various DWG Working Drawings with a little patience:

https://www.trafficsigns.ie/working-drawings-1

For example, WK 090 to 099 in the Chapter 8 files have a good selection of the letters.
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Re: Irish road sign font

Post by AndyB »

And Xmas is spelt Nollaig.

It is essentially an adapted italicised form of Transport. All N road funding is central, but maintenance, especially of National Secondary Roads (N51 upwards) is often contracted out to county councils.
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Re: Irish road sign font

Post by Bryn666 »

I do think the 1977-89 style looked a lot better though. Pity that system was not developed in favour of what exists now.
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Re: Irish road sign font

Post by Enceladus »

I also prefer the original Worboys-influenced road signage from its introduction in 1977 to 1989, after which Gaelic placenanes etc were italicised.

Here’s a photo I took a couple of days ago - it has to be one of the last existing original 1977 green road signs. Here on the Stillorgan Dual Carriageway at Donnybrook in Dublin 4, near the church.

[img]C:\fakepath\B27C8F88-0F66-4F83-B5E4-50F2FA7C9B2C.jpeg[/img]


[url]C:\fakepath\D7174D03-7A3B-445C-BA1B-21EFE2C8ED51.jpeg[/url]


It’s a route confirmatory sign (excuse the graffiti) but interestingly it has no distances in kilometres to the destinations on the sign.


EDIT: As per usual for SABRE, it’s deemed to be too big despite repeated attempts to trim it down. Not faffing around for ages like I did earlier trying to upload it.... :|
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Re: Irish road sign font

Post by Chris5156 »

Enceladus wrote: Mon Nov 15, 2021 19:02Here’s a photo I took a couple of days ago - it has to be one of the last existing original 1977 green road signs. Here on the Stillorgan Dual Carriageway at Donnybrook in Dublin 4, near the church.
This fella?
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Re: Irish road sign font

Post by Bryn666 »

Chris5156 wrote: Mon Nov 15, 2021 19:52
Enceladus wrote: Mon Nov 15, 2021 19:02Here’s a photo I took a couple of days ago - it has to be one of the last existing original 1977 green road signs. Here on the Stillorgan Dual Carriageway at Donnybrook in Dublin 4, near the church.
This fella?
There are a few original signs down the side streets off the N11, but not many green ones.
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Re: Irish road sign font

Post by Enceladus »

Chris5156 wrote: Mon Nov 15, 2021 19:52
Enceladus wrote: Mon Nov 15, 2021 19:02Here’s a photo I took a couple of days ago - it has to be one of the last existing original 1977 green road signs. Here on the Stillorgan Dual Carriageway at Donnybrook in Dublin 4, near the church.
This fella?

That’s the one! :) Still standing in place after nearly 45 years.

Of course, the road is no longer classified as the N11 at this spot - now the R138.
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Re: Irish road sign font

Post by Bryn666 »

Enceladus wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 01:54
Chris5156 wrote: Mon Nov 15, 2021 19:52
Enceladus wrote: Mon Nov 15, 2021 19:02Here’s a photo I took a couple of days ago - it has to be one of the last existing original 1977 green road signs. Here on the Stillorgan Dual Carriageway at Donnybrook in Dublin 4, near the church.
This fella?

That’s the one! :) Still standing in place after nearly 45 years.

Of course, the road is no longer classified as the N11 at this spot - now the R138.
Here are the many side road examples, note the numerals are not Transport, Ireland had a combo of the MoT and Transport (there were flat top 3s used on some of these signs).

https://goo.gl/maps/DanF1bU3foorrSjf9
https://goo.gl/maps/2VVgQp3eyHTaFgQM7
https://goo.gl/maps/iwveMzxDPiTPbQYZ9

https://goo.gl/maps/uQHSQxtHq8SUv5Ge7 in comparison modern Irish signs look too cartoonish for me. It's a shame because the system itself is very good, the design is just lacking.
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Re: Irish road sign font

Post by dub_boi »

There was a proposal in 2013 from Irish-language group, Conradh na Gaeilge, to amend the font and use different colours for the English and Irish text: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland ... 587458?a=b

Personally I liked the idea, though it seems to have gone nowhere. The use of a separate colour allows me to easily tune out the 'other' language. It's a similar principal to the wayfinding signage at Dublin Airport.
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Re: Irish road sign font

Post by EthanL13 »

Conekicker wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 19:52
Nathan_A_RF wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 16:34 Shame that's an image though, and not a raw file from a working drawing.
You could possibly extract at least some of the letters from the various DWG Working Drawings with a little patience:
Voilà. :wink: Based on the UK's TSRGD character set of course. Letters taken from either PDFs or DWGs, with non-Irish characters added. Someone would need to make a font file from it though...
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