Design
Road signs in the United Kingdom are governed by an extremely complex and detailed set of guidelines. The basic units of measurement used by sign designers are the 'x-height' (the height of the lower case letter 'x') and the 'stroke width' (sw) (4 sw = 1 x-height). The sizes of borders, symbols and arrows and the spacing and layout of the sign face are expressed in sw, so that all the elements remain in proportion. The x-height of a sign is dictated mainly by the speed of traffic approaching it, hence 300mm x-heights are common on motorways, whereas parking signs are mostly at 15mm or 20mm x-height.
Traffic signs are generally designed using specialist computer software. The two most popular systems are SignPlot from Buchanan Computing, and KeySign (previously AutoSign) from Key Traffic Systems, originally developed in the 1980s by Pete Harman and Geoff Walker whilst working for Humberside County Council.
Read more about this topic: Road Signs In The United Kingdom
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