Our fun begins on page 186 under Section 703. WHY don't they just provide all of us with the FONT they want us to use? Quit pretending to give us any element of design in signage. I know, we can tell our clients that we use "a national supplier that knows all the rules", but at one point or another, we STILL need to show them sketches.
Sample of the things that await you: "703.2.2 Case. Characters shall be uppercase.703.2.3 Style. Characters shall be sans serif. Characters shall not be italic, oblique, script, highly decorative, or of other unusual forms.703.2.4 Character Proportions. Characters shall be selected from fonts where the width of the uppercase letter “O” is 55 percent minimum and 110 percent maximum of the height of the uppercase letter “I”.703.2.5 Character Height. Character height measured vertically from the baseline of the character shall be 5/8 inch (16 mm) minimum and 2 inches (51 mm) maximum based on the height of the uppercase letter “I”."
"703.2.7 Character Spacing. Character spacing shall be measured between the two closest points of adjacent raised characters within a message, excluding word spaces. Where characters have rectangular cross sections, spacing between individual raised characters shall be 1/8 inch (3.2 mm) minimum and 4 times the raised character stroke width maximum. Where characters have other cross sections, spacing between individual raised characters shall be 1/16 inch (1.6 mm) minimum and 4 times the raised character stroke width maximum at the base of the cross sections, and 1/8 inch (3.2 mm) minimum and 4 times the raised character stroke width maximum at the top of the cross sections. Characters shall be separated from raised borders and decorative elements 3/8 inch (9.5 mm) minimum."
[ February 18, 2011, 04:39 PM: Message edited by: Gene Golden ]
Posted by Mark Matyjakowski (Member # 294) on :
quote:703.2.6 Stroke Thickness. Stroke thickness of the uppercase letter “I” shall be 15 percent maximum of the height of the character.
quote:703.5.7 Stroke Thickness. Stroke thickness of the uppercase letter “I” shall be 10 percent minimum and 30 percent maximum of the height of the character.
quote:703.5.2 Case. Characters shall be uppercase or lowercase or a combination of both.
Smells like bureaucracy.
I do alot of this type of work and there's still room to be creative if you try... just can't use super fat/thin, condensed, illegible, badly spaced fonts.
Posted by Brent Logan (Member # 6587) on :
I should send you a sympathy card...haha. I've been doing a ton of this kind of work lately for some California projects and my mind is turning to mush from reading this crap.
Frutiger has been pretty popular on a lot of the ADA and wayfinding signs we've been "designing". You might give that a try if it matches the specs.
Posted by Alicia B. Jennings (Member # 1272) on :
Arggg, Patagonia is looking better every day.
Posted by Rick Chavez (Member # 2146) on :
This stuff is fun!!!!
umm, yeah... don't trust your national supplier to 'know the rules'. I do this work all the time, you have no idea the crap I have seen. On another forum, the sample shown by one of the posters was completely wrong and quite a few of the signs on a project I was working on had to be corrected
By the way "technically" the 2010 ADA Standards are not required to be met until March 15, 2012, unless your state requires it, but I design to that standard and to the states standards where the sign is going in (whatever is more stringent)
Posted by bruce ward (Member # 1289) on :
Also don't trust your local cite inspector either. they have NO CLUE! They love to spat out what it's gotta be but don't make them answer questions.
Why is ADA so damn confusing and always changing? The government runs it. I personally think most common sense is gone when planning for these signs. I was asked by city inspector if the signs could be easily reached by wheelchair since the signs were 60" up on wall....I said "We are on the third floor with nothing but steps"...there was silence.
These are new 3-story apartments and the ADA required braille on the door signs. My thoughts are if your blind and somehow you got the apartments and somehow made it to the third floor finding the door should be no problem. We are becoming a more handicapped ridden society. im not bashing the handicapped but it's going just a little too far
Posted by Gene Golden (Member # 3934) on :
At one of the Sign Trade shows, I was talking to a person who was ADA knowledgeable, and I believe an ADA consultant too. Her statement to me:
"Blind people don't touch signs. Sign People touch signs!"
That is SO true! I'm ALWAYS feeling signs to determine what the material is, or if it is really textured, or whatever. As a matter of fact, my fingerprints are probably all over signs YOU'VE made Posted by Rick Chavez (Member # 2146) on :
I forget about inspectors... they are pretty clueless too, the smart ones will have you submit your drawings to the state architect for review prior to fabrication.
I worked for an ADA consultant, part of the job was to translate braille to Type 2 braille and double check it by sight. What is interesting is a small percentage of blind people can read type 2 braille, but that is the braille that is required, most blind people are technically "low sighted" from old age and diabetes. They can read the raised lettering. Drives my wife and kids crazy when I notice a bad braille translation. It's not hard to do with the translation software.
[ February 19, 2011, 01:20 PM: Message edited by: Rick Chavez ]
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