All over the world highway signs are unmissable integrated parts of the landscape. Signage plays such a big part in our lives that even a speculative redesign represents an huge challenge for designers to tackle. For their annual Rethink issue, Icon Magazine asked the San Francisco-based studio Manual to do just that.
The familiar green placards that currently flank our roads, Manual writes, are “confusing, inconsistent and messy.” In their place, the group devised a system of muted gray signs, using simple geometric markers in place of the existing shield symbols, which, they explain, feel “dated and too ‘police state.’” Colored strips at the top of Manual’s signs maintain the color scheme currently employed to designate various roadways, with blue signaling interstate highways, white being used for U.S. highways, and black representing state highways. It all contributes to an immediate feeling of modernity and efficiency, and after looking at these orderly new signs for a while, the current ones do start to look a little bit silly, with all their cartoon shields and oversize arrows. Manual’s strict, rectangular signs also have the benefit of doing away with a particularly annoying little quirk of our current design: the four tiny green triangles that poke outside the rounded white outline at the corners of every highway sign. Those drive me crazy.
But the most radical components of Manual’s redesign can be found when you’re getting off the highway. The group’s proposal calls for every exit sign to be fitted with a wireless transmitter, connecting it to a smartphone app provided by the Department of Transportation. As drivers zoom down the interstate, the app would update dynamically with information on restaurants, gas stations, and local points of interest found at the exits ahead. It’s like a high-tech version of those signs that tell you what restaurants you can expect at the next exit, except instead of just announcing every McDonalds and Cracker Barrel across the country, the app would feature independent businesses that lack highway visibility. Aside from the whole issue of fumbling with your smartphone while you’re hurtling down the highway at 80 miles per hour, this part of Manual’s redesign is especially compelling.
San Francisco-based studio Manual sought to remedy the “confusing, inconsistent and messy” system of signs currently in place.
The tops of the signs are stripped with a band of color, corresponding to the type of roadway they represent–blue for interstate highways, white for US highways, and black for state highways.
Manual dropped the green background in favor of gray and replaced the current system of shield symbols with simple square ones. The shields, they felt, were “dated and too ‘police state.’”
In Manual’s proposal, exit signs go wireless, allowing a smartphone app to display information on the attractions and eateries that can be found at upcoming exits (and not just fast food).
Clarity and efficiency were paramount in the redesign.
Toll roads seem like another prime candidate for smartphone-based payment.
Iconography and visual style remains consistent across the signs and the proposed app.