RT Rondelle is the result of an exploration into public transport signage typefaces. While building on this foundation it incorporates the distinctive characteristics of a highly specialized genre to become a versatile grotesque with a balanced geometrical touch.

Origin

While starting my research I was especially interested in the custom tailored typographic solutions used to fulfill the requirements of this very specific environment under the clearly defined conditions of road and public transport signage. These design limitations produced purposeful formal solutions with a unique aesthetic and characteristic attributes. Nonetheless there are plenty of peculiar typefaces and letterforms to be found in this field.

POLSKIE PISMO DROGOWE as seen in Marek Sigmund’s manual. Image taken by Kuba Sowiński and kindly provided by Marian Misiak

It all started for me when I saw a sample of the typeface Polskie Pismo Drogowe used in Polish road signage. It was originally designed by Marek Sigmund in 1975 for the Ministry of Transportation. The typeface seemed to go against all conventions, was geometrically constructed with no optical compensations and quite brutal in nature but nevertheless charming and wonderfully naive in its approach. To find an example that was designed with little consideration for space and legibility in traffic sparked my curiosity for further searches.

LONDON AIRPORT LETTERING featured in the magazine Typographica 5 in June 1962. Image kindly provided by the Letterform Archive

Another interesting example is the London Airport Lettering signage typeface Matthew Carter drew for Colin Forbes’ sign system for the No. 3 Passenger Building of London Airport. The design is based on Standard Bold (the english name for Akzidenz Grotesk) but with a lower uppercase and shortened ascenders and descenders, the typical characteristics of a signage typeface. This way the London Airport Lettering was able to achieve larger letterforms on a spatially limited sign area. Note the steep curve with which the descender of the lowercase y changes its direction and the lowercase g, which has a drastically thinned out descender.

Being a designer in Switzerland you can imagine it’s impossible to escape the work of Josef Müller-Brockmann. His and his team’s work is omnipresent even for non-designers in the form of the SBB railroad company’s identity and signage system. For many it has become an integral part of the Swiss landscape. The typeface originally intended to be used exclusively was Rail Alphabet by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert, although it was named Helvetica halbfett korrigiert (Helvetica Semi-Bold corrected) in the manual. To this day various typefaces like Rail Alphabet, Helvetica and sometimes even Arial can be found within the SBB signage system. Since 2016 the newly commissioned SBB Font developed by URW++ is being implemented to unify the appearance of the signage system.

Further references during the design process were, amongst others: Highway Gothic, Interstate, Rail Alphabet, Transport, Johnston Sans and various snippets of interesting signage examples not part of any elaborate system.

However fascinating these examples were, it was never my intention to design another signage typeface to begin with. I started out by assembling and regrouping impressions and influences rather intuitively and building a shape vocabulary to use for the development of RT Rondelle without the typical requirements of a public signage typeface. By slowly learning the language of various examples of the genre the idea for my own project became clearer throughout the process. RT Rondelle borrows characteristic attributes of signage typefaces and weaves them into its own personality to offer designers a versatile material to work with.

A recurring theme during the design process was the geometry within the letters. I’m referring to the visual appearance of the letters not the mathematical construction of geometric shapes. Although a constructional approach can of course produce interesting outcomes, the resulting typefaces are mostly not suited to perform well in various environments without drawing too much attention to single letters within a text. I wanted to apply a more subtle and gentler approach to RT Rondelle. The round appearance of the typeface and the fitting contrast between vertical and horizontal strokes had to be carefully determined. I wanted optical corrections to fulfill their purpose but at the same time not apply more than necessary to keep that mono-line-look without the effect of the shapes closing up.

While the vertical metrics are all about economizing space the horizontal proportions of RT Rondelle are more generous and try to explore the boundaries within the framework of versatile functionality . The usually narrow letters like f j r t are drawn even narrower and the round letters like o c e b d p q are drawn rather wide lending the typeface a well balanced geometric feel emphasizing the rhythm in a letter sequence.

What fascinated me most about signage typefaces is the wordmark-style in which some of them display words. Names of trainstations or single words indicating a specific direction are perceived by the reader, who is passing by rather quickly, more as an image than a written word. With this in mind I designed RT Rondelle to have a concise and compact appearance by referencing the characteristic features of the source material.

Thin

Edgware Road

Extralight

Upminster

Light

Camden Town

Book

Richmond

Regular

Shepherdʼs Bush

Medium

Heathrow

Bold

Oxford Circus

Black

Waterloo

Thin Italic

Deutsche Oper

Extralight Italic

Gleisdreieck

Light Italic

Hallesches Tor

Book Italic

Ruhleben

Regular Italic

Leopoldplatz

Medium Italic

Britz-Süd

Bold Italic

Osloer Straße

Black Italic

Wedding

The RT Rondelle Family spans  from the delicate Thin, Extralight and Light weights through the steady middle weights of Book and Regular up to the impactful Medium, Bold and Black weights. The wide spectrum ensures a extensive applicability while completing the typeface with matching italics for each weight.

Thin

Antwerpen Centraal

Extralight

Liège-Guillemans

Light

Zürich Stadelhofen

Book

Paris Saint-Lazare

London King’s Cross

Medium

Madrid Chamartín

Bold

Marseille Blancarde

Black

Brussel Schuman

Thin Italic

Berlin Hauptbahnhof

Extralight Italic

Lille Europe

Light Italic

Oslo Sentralstasjon

Book Italic

Stazione Termini

Regular Italic

Praha Hlavní Nádraží

Medium Italic

Lyon-Part-Dieu

Bold Italic

Newcastle Central

Black Italic

Milano Centrale

Thin + Italic

Il treno regionale proveniente Genova è in arrivo al binario 6.

Extralight + Italic

Concorde! Attention à la marche en descendant du train.

Light + Italic

Ukončete výstup a nástup, dveře se zavírají. Příští stanice Zličín.

Book + Italic

Alexanderplatz! Dieser Zug endet hier. Bitte alle aussteigen.

Regular + Italic

Se upp för dörrarna, dörrarna stängs. Nästa stopp Tensta.

Medium + Italic

Urmeaza statia Apărătorii Patriei cu peronul pe partea dreapta.

Bold + Italic

Ihre nächsten Verbindungen: Intercity nach Lausanne Gleis 4.

Black + Italic

This is a Circle line train via Tower Hill and Liverpool Street.

Grown out of the inspiration found in road and public transport signage typefaces, RT Rondelle embarks on a new life of its own, leaving behind the restrictions of its heritage to form a consistent and independent type family.

LICENSE RT RONDELLE

SEE PDF SPECIMEN

Check out other Razzia typefaces:

Credits

RT Rondelle is the result of an exploration into public transport signage typefaces. While building on this foundation it incorporates the distinctive characteristics of a highly specialized genre to become a versatile grotesque with a balanced geometrical touch.

POLSKIE PISMO DROGOWE as seen in Marek Sigmund’s manual. Image taken by Kuba Sowiński and kindly provided by Marian Misiak

It all started for me when I saw a sample of the typeface Polskie Pismo Drogowe used in Polish road signage. It was originally designed by Marek Sigmund in 1975 for the Ministry of Transportation. The typeface seemed to go against all conventions, was geometrically constructed with no optical compensations and quite brutal in nature but nevertheless charming and wonderfully naive in its approach. To find an example that was designed with little consideration for space and legibility in traffic sparked my curiosity for further searches.

LONDON AIRPORT LETTERING featured in the magazine Typographica 5 in June 1962. Image kindly provided by the Letterform Archive

Another interesting example is the London Airport Lettering signage typeface Matthew Carter drew for Colin Forbes’ sign system for the No. 3 Passenger Building of London Airport. The design is based on Standard Bold (the english name for Akzidenz Grotesk) but with a lower uppercase and shortened ascenders and descenders, the typical characteristics of a signage typeface. This way the London Airport Lettering was able to achieve larger letterforms on a spatially limited sign area. Note the steep curve with which the descender of the lowercase y changes its direction and the lowercase g, which has a drastically thinned out descender.

SBB SIGNAGE in derogation from the SBB signage guidelines. Image taken by Mirco Schiavone at the trainstation of Dietikon, 2019

Being a designer in Switzerland you can imagine it’s impossible to escape the work of Josef Müller-Brockmann. His and his team’s work is omnipresent even for non-designers in the form of the SBB railroad company’s identity and signage system. For many it has become an integral part of the Swiss landscape. The typeface originally intended to be used exclusively was Rail Alphabet by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert, although it was named Helvetica halbfett korrigiert (Helvetica Semi-Bold corrected) in the manual. To this day various typefaces like Rail Alphabet, Helvetica and sometimes even Arial can be found within the SBB signage system. Since 2016 the newly commissioned SBB Font developed by URW++ is being implemented to unify the appearance of the signage system.

Further references during the design process were, amongst others: Highway Gothic, Interstate, Rail Alphabet, Transport, Johnston Sans and various snippets of interesting signage examples not part of any elaborate system.

Design

However fascinating these examples were, it was never my intention to design another signage typeface to begin with. I started out by assembling and regrouping impressions and influences rather intuitively and building a shape vocabulary to use for the development of RT Rondelle without the typical requirements of a public signage typeface. By slowly learning the language of various examples of the genre the idea for my own project became clearer throughout the process. RT Rondelle borrows characteristic attributes of signage typefaces and weaves them into its own personality to offer designers a versatile material to work with.

RT Rondelle sports a high x-height, which continuously grows throughout the family to reach its peak in the Black weight. A high x-height is a feature widely used to improve legibility at big distances but works just as well for type set in very small sizes. As the lowercase is higher in proportion to the uppercase the type appears bigger compared to fonts with a lower x-height. The distance between x-height and ascender height and between baseline and descender depth on the other hand is kept relatively small compared to the x-height. The short descenders save space below the baseline and allow designers to deliberately decrease leading for ultra-tight typesetting.

A recurring theme during the design process was the geometry within the letters. I’m referring to the visual appearance of the letters not the mathematical construction of geometric shapes. Although a constructional approach can of course produce interesting outcomes, the resulting typefaces are mostly not suited to perform well in various environments without drawing too much attention to single letters within a text. I wanted to apply a more subtle and gentler approach to RT Rondelle. The round appearance of the typeface and the fitting contrast between vertical and horizontal strokes had to be carefully determined. I wanted optical corrections to fulfill their purpose but at the same time not apply more than necessary to keep that mono-line-look without the effect of the shapes closing up.

While the vertical metrics are all about economizing space the horizontal proportions of RT Rondelle are more generous and try to explore the boundaries within the framework of versatile functionality . The usually narrow letters like f j r t are drawn even narrower and the round letters like o c e b d p q are drawn rather wide lending the typeface a well balanced geometric feel emphasizing the rhythm in a letter sequence.

What fascinated me most about signage typefaces is the wordmark-style in which some of them display words. Names of trainstations or single words indicating a specific direction are perceived by the reader, who is passing by rather quickly, more as an image than a written word. With this in mind I designed RT Rondelle to have a concise and compact appearance by referencing the characteristic features of the source material.

Thin

Edgware Road

Thin

Upminster

Light

Camden Town

Book

Richmond

Regular

Shepherdʼs Bush

Heathrow

Bold

Oxford Circus

Black

Waterloo

Thin Italic

Deutsche Oper

Extralight Italic

Gleisdreieck

Light Italic

Hallesches Tor

Book Italic

Ruhleben

Regular Italic

Medium Italic

Britz-Süd

Bold Italic

Osloer Straße

Black Italic

Wedding

The RT Rondelle Family spans  from the delicate Thin, Extralight and Light weights through the steady middle weights of Book and Regular up to the impactful Medium, Bold and Black weights. The wide spectrum ensures a extensive applicability while completing the typeface with matching italics for each weight.

Thin

Antwerpen Centraal

Extralight

Liège-Guillemans

Light

Zürich Stadelhofen

Book

Paris Saint-Lazare

Regular

London King’s Cross

Medium

Madrid Chamartín

Bold

Marseille Blancarde

Black

Brussel Schuman

Thin Italic

Berlin Hauptbahnhof

Extralight Italic

Lille Europe

Light Italic

Book Italic

Stazione Termini

Regular Italic

Praha Hlavní Nádraží

Lyon-Part-Dieu

Bold Italic

Newcastle Central

Black Italic

Thin + Italic

Il treno regionale proveniente Genova è in arrivo al binario 6.

Extralight + Italic

Concorde! Attention à la marche en descendant du train.

Light + Italic

Ukončete výstup a nástup, dveře se zavírají. Příští stanice Zličín.

Book + Italic

Alexanderplatz! Dieser Zug endet hier. Bitte alle aussteigen.

Regular + Italic

Medium + Italic

Urmeaza statia Apărătorii Patriei cu peronul pe partea dreapta.

Bold + Italic

Black + Italic

This is a Circle line train via Tower Hill and Liverpool Street.

Grown out of the inspiration found in road and public transport signage typefaces, RT Rondelle embarks on a new life of its own, leaving behind the restrictions of its heritage to form a consistent and independent type family.

SEE PDF SPECIMEN

Check out other Razzia typefaces: