Show us your... roadsigns!!!

[simlink 1,098]

Great signs, everyone. I have a lot of work to do on mine...

[MandelSoft 2,770]

So, even though I haven't posted something in this thread for a long time, here is something I made yesterday:

A simple diagrammel sign, depicting Hwy. 624 splitting off from Hwy. 24 as it heads to Downtown Westport.

There's a lot of wasted empty space on the sign. If you make the arrow a lot shorter, you can save quite some height and therefore space.

[deanva 70]

Nice signs everyone. Have a question concerning airport road signs. Is there a rule of thumb on what is listed at the top of a sign, like if you get to the parking garage first then the terminal if you continue down the same road, which would be listed first? Can not find anything online, or is it my choice to what is at the top? Your opions would be helpful. Thanks.

[nathanthemayor 1,262]

May I bump this thread?

I made this set of signs a couple of weeks back and forgot about them until today. Note that the sign at bottom would go before the ones at top. Such interchange setups are fairly common in the UC(A three lane splitting off with two, which then split off). This is also one of two areas in the UC that use "C" for an exit...

(It is kinda obvious I made last minute changes )

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

May I bump this thread?

No you may not. 10 points from Gryffindor.

Do you use Paint to make these signs?

[MandelSoft 2,770]

I'd have done it like this:

[Liszak 48]

 

I made this for my city which I wanted to look like british but it is..umm..nevermind. 

[rubberduck3y6 45]

@Liszak: I'm British and it looks pretty good to me! The only thing is the prices would be written as £0.50 and £0.80 (if only real UK prices were that low! ). Also there's a typo in point 2 on the list.

[SparkleMagic91 23]

What programs do you all use to make the roadsigns?

[Liszak 48]

@Liszak: I'm British and it looks pretty good to me! The only thing is the prices would be written as £0.50 and £0.80 (if only real UK prices were that low! ). Also there's a typo in point 2 on the list.

 

Thanks! Opinion from real Brit is really valuable for me. (I see that typo now, shame on me.)

What programs do you all use to make the roadsigns?

 

I use photoshop. Assuming from what I read here, Inkscape is also very popular amongst "sign makers."

[MandelSoft 2,770]

Inkscape is a very appropriate tool to make signage. Unlike MS Paint, Photoshop or GIMP, InkScape use vector images rather than bitmap images. This means that the image is constructed of lines (or curves splines), nodes and fill elements rather than pixels. This particular property of vector images opens a whole range of new possibilities and a very smooth way to draw diagram images (like signs) or even draw maps or cartoons (see my avatar). It takes a while to get used to it, but once you know it how it works, you're loving it!

---

Here are a few signs made in Inkscape and 'shopped in with the GIMP:

Belgium signage, improved

And old fictional sign from Schellingen, including stickering to "update" the sign

Why USA signage won't work in the Netherlands...

---

A very convincingly shopped sign series

---

Same sign, three different styles:

- Luxembourgian style

- Old School Dutch style

- Austrian style

---

And one for the LULZ (yes, I used to be that bad at sign design )

Best,

Maarten

[hyperspace220 14]

Something I drew up in Paint.Net:

(I modeled this almost exactly off of real life. The only difference from the picture below is the "EXIT IN 1/4 MILES".)

The sign in real life:

(I-5 South @ WA-520 East)

Barely any difference, right? :>

  Edited April 18, 2013 by hyperspace220  

[hyperspace220 14]

@MandelSoft

 

You can 'shop photos in with GIMP?!

 

I sense a challenge.

 

Anyways, if you didn't add that that was pasted in with GIMP, I wouldn't have even guessed that the signs don't actually "exist".

  Edited April 19, 2013 by hyperspace220  

[hyperspace220 14]

MOARRR. Fictional this time.

And an electronic variable speed sign.

[MandelSoft 2,770]

Two animated GIFs:

 

A sign I've vastly improved;

Sequence: Original - MandelSoft USA-Redesign

 

 

A sign in Liège (Belgium) I've transformed in different styles:

Sequence: Original - Schellingen design (fictional) - Old School Dutch Design - Luxembourgian Design - Austrian Design

 

And one non-GIF image just for fun:

 

Fun you can do with the GIMP

 

Best,
Maarten
 

[hyperspace220 14]

@MandelSoft The last image is  . dat emoticon, just cuz i can

 

 

 

How do you get the down/up/diagonal arrows in Roadgeek Series E font? Or do you have to download series C or D or whatever?

[MandelSoft 2,770]

I've had that question several times now. I use InkScape for that.

[hyperspace220 14]

I've had that question several times now. I use InkScape for that.

I figured that out once I flipped a few pages back in the thread, thanks anyways 

 

EDIT: I tried using InkScape for the first time. XD

Oh well.

 

EDIT 2 (since apparently I can't do spaces after the image): Thanks for the link.

[MandelSoft 2,770]

Also, if you have InkScape and you want some different arrows, here's a whole bunch of them in SVG-format. Just right-click to download:

http://svg.tnx.nl/dump/2012-12-11T21:26:43_s9t0f3.svg

[hyperspace220 14]

Hot off the Paint.NET press (Thanks to MandelSoft for the arrows)

[FreewayofFlight 41]

[hyperspace220 14]

Bumpity bump bump.

 

FreewayofFlight: Nice sign, but (just saying) if you're basing the sign off of the US system, brown is usually for parks (usually only state and national parks). For example, here's a sign that has a naval base "on it":

Nevermind, I read your CJ.

 

Now, another sign off the press. (The district that the sign was on was the first to renumber their routes in my imaginary country, and the sign crews didn't do a very good job )

The "M" prefix is for freeways, and A is for major routes (that can be part freeway/part ground road). The M6-A highway is based on the same concept of spur freeways in the US. (Like, I-405 is a "child" of I-5, in the same way as M6-A is a "child" of M6.)

[losbay 1]

I made myself a directional traffic signs standards for my nation of Los Bay Petros. The signs are quietly similar to Irish and German style with a little modifications.

 

[simlink 1,098]

These are some signs I've just fiddled around with. None of the roads in my CJ are officially named, except for the main freeways (Highways 40, 140, 82, 282, 23) - so the names were made up. So if I do ever name the streets, don't be surprised if the regional and local roads differ from the signs below.

 

I may have shown these off before, but I don't think I have.

 

 

Also, for those who follow my CJ, will notice something: Southlands. Southlands was the name of what is now Sherkston in the early development of Holt District.

[MandelSoft 2,770]

The reason why US signage principles don't work that well on European signage:

 

 

 

Best,

Maarten (and Riiga)

[hyperspace220 14]

losbay: Nice signs! Some of the arrows that are thin look a bit weird, I don't know if I would be able to read that passing at high speeds.

sim_link: I'm pretty sure you showed them on this thread.

 

As for my signs, I'm open to suggestions, as I always have been

 

Also, Alleen Afrit gets me every time. Why does it need to be there? Exactly why american signage sucks when used on dutch signs. Way too many shields and words, takes too much space.

 

 

 

EDIT: A sign for the lols.

WHY THE "LANE ENDS" SIGN?!?

[MandelSoft 2,770]

^^ Haha, that looks silly indeed 

 

Well, if I look at this design of yours:

Here are some points to improve:

- Keep strict scale. I often use 1m = 100px as scale and that one lane = 4m. This way, I can set my arrows at the right positions. Besides, did you know that if you press an arrow key, the selected object moves exactly 2 pixels in that direction and when you use SHIFT+Arrow Key, the object moves 20 pixels?

- Keep a standard for font size. I usually use 48pt for standard text and 40 for route shields. Other commonly used font sizes by me for other elements are 32 and 36 pt. Small fonts and not easy to read, so are changing font sizes (Austria is horrible at it on this point)

- Work with more exact dimensions. I like to round up my dimensions to the nearest 5 or 10. You can see the dimensions in one of the following tabs at the top of the screen:

General: 

For rectangles: 

- Line up your sign more properly. Go to "Object -> Align and Distribute". You'll see a new tab appear with alignment options. I usually set "Relative position from:" to "Last selected", so all objects are aligned to the one I selected last.

- Why are there circles on the bakground of the routeshields? I would remove those, since they don't add anything.

- Ever heard of the Heraldic Colour Rule? It's a really important one to make signs better readable. According to this rule, you have two kinds of colours: metals (white, yellow, silver, in some cases orange) and colours (red, green blue, black, purple, orange in other cases). Now, the rule says that two metals and two colours may not border each other. This will add a better contrast to signs and it makes them more readable.

- I would personally not use italic writing for my route shields

- I would also remove EXIT only, or at least the text. With arrows pointing up it's highly redundant, but for arrows down you can find better solutions. In Europe, Exit Only is nowhere to be found. Instead, we use one of the following methods:

A: all signs indicating an exit are automatically exit only. No exceptions. Often assisted with arrow markings:

 

B: Exit only lanes have different arrows:

 

C: Just sign every lane (very redundant method):

 

D: The Danish Taper Solution

 

E: The British Stack Solution:

 

If you however still want to use Exit Only I'm much more fond of the Ontario solution:

 

So, I think this will leave you enough material to work with

 

Best,

Maarten

[hyperspace220 14]

MandelSoft: Thanks!

 

 

Another try at making a sign in InkScape.

(A mix of Canadian/my own standards)

  Edited May 2, 2013 by hyperspace220  

[flatron 83]

If Canada would've been colonized by Germans and Italians... (In that fictional world, England is the bad guy whereas the Germany and Italy are more like GB and France)

[FreewayofFlight 41]