A Common Design Error That’s Been Hiding in Plain Sight
Is an error really an error if nobody notices it? Plus an important nesting bowl update, and more.
It all started when I was walking up Sixth Avenue in Manhattan last week and noticed a sign for a shop that was going out of business (see above). As my brain processed the sign, the following thought sequence played out in my head, all in the space of a nanosecond:
“Hmmm, the O and I in GOING are raised higher than the other letters. Maybe it’s a vowel thing?”
“ Oh, the O in OUT is also raised. So yes, vowels!”
“Wait, the U in OUT isn’t raised, so it’s not a vowel thing after all.”
“Hmmm, the S in SALE is also raised. Oh, and it’s also upside-down!”
And that’s when I realized that the raised letters were positioned higher than the other letters because those sheets were upside-down. I probably would have figured that out anyway, but the S was the real giveaway. (Of course, if the letters had been vertically centered on the sheets, then the upside-down letters wouldn’t have been raised, but that’s a separate issue.)
A letter or other glyph that looks the same even when it’s oriented upside-down is called an ambigram. Certain capital letters — H, I, N, O, X, and Z — are ambigrams in many fonts, especially sans serif fonts; S also qualifies in some fonts, but not the one used for that sign I saw on Sixth Avenue.
I thought this all constituted an amusing bit of inconspicuousness, so I posted the photo on Facebook. And that’s when my friend Jonathan blew my mind by posting this comment:
I fear you’re about to start noticing how many roadside hospital signs, consisting of a white H on a blue background, have a slightly lower-than-expected crossbar, because they’re upside-down. By my estimate, it’s well over half.
Jonathan happens to be one of the world’s foremost typographers. He’s designed dozens of typefaces, won lots of design awards, been featured on Netflix’s Abstract: The Art of Design series, blah-blah-blah. So it makes sense that he might notice a typographic glitch that the rest of us haven’t picked up on. But his comment still sent me reeling.
I assume we’re all well acquainted with the familiar highway signs that Jonathan’s referring to, right? They usually look something like this:
In that photo, the crossbar appears to be slightly north of the equator. But is that how it’s supposed to look? The official version of this sign (and most other highway signs) can be found in the mighty Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, or MUTCD. It lists the hospital H as sign No. D9-2, with this design:
Yup, the crossbar is definitely positioned above the letter’s horizontal center. But how much above? I created a simple measuring tool and applied it to the upper and lower stems of the letter:
So if the lower stem measures 5 units long, the upper stem is 4.1 units long. Or to put it another way, the upper stem is about 18% shorter than the lower stem. Or to put it yet another way, this letter is definitely not an ambigram.
But it’s close to an ambigram — so close, apparently, that a lot of road crews have been mistakenly installing these signs upside-down, at least according to Jonathan. But is that really true? I immediately thought of the “H” sign pointing the way to Stony Brook University Hospital on Long Island, which I drive past whenever I visit my mom. The most recent shot of that sign on Google Street View is from July 2024, as follows: