Fonts and ADA Signs
What is a font, and why is what font you choose for your ADA signs important? The definition of font, as everyone knows, is a complete assortment of type of one style and size.
ADA signs are required to use sans (without) serif fonts (a smaller line used to finish off a main stroke of a letter, as at the top and bottom of M). In short, block characters are required by the Department of Justice. Characters are defined as: Letters, numbers, punctuation marks and typographic symbols. The requirements are more detailed than that, however. The 2010 ADA Standards provide these specific rules:
- 703.1 General. Signs shall comply with 703. Where both visual and tactile characters are required, either one sign with both visual and tactile characters, or two separate signs, one with visual, and one with tactile characters, shall be provided.
- 703.2 Raised Characters. Raised characters shall comply with 703.2 and shall be duplicated in braille complying with 703.3. Raised characters shall be installed in accordance with 703.4.
Advisory 703.2 Raised Characters. Signs that are designed to be read by touch should not have sharp or abrasive edges.
Besides limiting the style of characters one can use on ADA compliant signs, the character stroke and spacing are also regulated.
- 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 ecorative, or of other unusual forms.
- 703.2.4 Character Proportions. Characters shall be selected from fonts where the width of theuppercase 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 charactershall be 5/8 inch (16 mm) minimum and 2 inches (51 mm) maximum based on the height of the uppercase letter “I”.
- 703.2.6 Stroke Thickness. Stroke thickness of the uppercase letter “I” shall be 15 percent maximum of the height of the character.
- 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.
- 703.2.8 Line Spacing. Spacing between the baselines of separate lines of raised characters within a message shall be 135 percent minimum and 170 percent maximum of the raised character height.
I would like break down each requirement, but that could take weeks! What I want people to take from the requirements that I have posted here, is that every detail about the text is covered for ADA signs. Fortunately, I don't have to measure each character on every sign. We use state of the art software that automatically spaces letters, and notifies us if a font is not compliant.
Even though your font is limited, we have many ways to make your signs both compliant and visually exciting.
Check out our gallery, and thanks for reading!
