Commons:Making road signs of the United Kingdom

Please do not use the fonts from roads.org.uk, see #Fonts for more details.

Category:Diagrams of road signs of the United Kingdom and its many subcategories contain thousands of files, generally in the SVG format. To maintain consistency, it is important to follow standards when making these road signs.

Making road signs

1. Download the relevant fonts (see #Fonts).
2. Install a vector graphics editor such as Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator.
3. Download a road sign similar to that you want to create as an SVG file. This means you can easily scale and not have to worry about layers or borders., Alternatively, consult the "Working drawings for Traffic Signs" on gov.uk, Some variants are also shown in them.
4. Make the road sign. It is highly recommended to first get experience with vector graphics programs.
5. Export the file as an SVG. Make sure that you check that the clipbox and scaling are set appropriately.
6. Upload the file to Commons using the naming scheme (see #File names).

File names

File names for road signs should always begin with "UK traffic sign" then be suffixed with their relevant diagram number from the working drawing or Traffic Signs Manual. (E.g., a traffic sign with the ID 2025 would have the file name "UK traffic sign 2025.svg"). Please note that these "diagram numbers" are not necessarily the same as the location of the sign within a given "Schedule" of the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions (last revised in 2016).

Deprecated and signs no longer indicated within The Traffic Signs Regulations should also have the applicable year(s) appended to the filename.

Design information

Much of the design information for current UK road signs is directly specified in the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions (last issued in 2016), with further information contained in the "Traffic Signs Manual" and "Working Drawings for Traffic Signs" both viewable as PDF's on gov.uk.

Current UK traffic signs are generally specified in metric; apart from the distances they show (given in miles or yards as indicated in the relevant Schedule), or height and width restrictions, shown as dual units (metric and imperial) either within a single sign, or as a pair or signs giving the imperial measure and the metric equivalent.

Earlier signs (such as those predating the 1960's) which are no longer current may be specified in 'imperial' measure only.

Signs in Wales, are bilingual.

Colors

Sign colors are specified in the Traffic Signs Regulations and Directions. Generally Commons has used the color palette guidance used for the "Traffic Signs Image Database" in respect of online and print usage for signs uploaded on Commons.

In respect of 'background' or transparent colors not part of the sign, they should be set to a color equivalent to that which would be used on a backing board (such as a neutral grey), or sign face if a "portion" to be incorporated in a larger design is shown.

Fonts

What fonts you should use

The fonts used on road signs in the United Kingdom are called Transport Medium and Transport Heavy, the Motorway font is also used.

Where you can get these fonts from

• Not roads.org.uk. The fonts here are poorly vectorised from raster files, contain many errors and have a huge file size.
• The official version of the original Transport font is available for commercial purchase here, for £29.
• A version of the font has been made from the official Transport working drawings at DaFont. This also contains the "Motoway" font. However it only contains one weight of Transport, the medium weight.
• The RoadGeek project has created both weights of Transport as part of their fonts at the website. Please note these are the same as the roads.org fonts and should not be used. Some concerns have been brought up over the quality of these fonts.
• If all else fails, you can extract the glyphs from the official working drawings, released under the OGL.

Isn't using these fonts copyright infringement?

No, it isn't. The letter tiles in the working drawings are nominally released under OGL, meaning it can be used on Commons. While the font files themselves may be able to be copyrighted, according to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, "It is not an infringement of copyright in an artistic work consisting of the design of a typeface to use the typeface in the ordinary course of typing, composing text, typesetting or printing..."

See also

Wikisource:Page:UK Traffic Signs Manual - Chapter 7 -The Design of Traffic Signs 2013.pdf/148