Street, transit, retail, hazard and hospital signage — cut to the shape the regime of the year used, in the
colours it meant, on the plate it was made from. Every place, route number, operator, shop, hospital and substance
is invented, and no registered route shield, transit device or company mark is drawn anywhere.
Part of Chronotype · Free to use.
Licence for paid productions ·
the research behind it
The sign — what the scene needs
Year & country
The message — what it actually says
The pictogram is never picked at random: the message chooses it, and a
symbol that did not exist in the chosen year is not offered.
The words on it — all invented
Places, route numbers, operators, hospitals, firms and substances are
made up. Type over any of them; a production that needs a real road number puts it in here and takes the
clearance decision itself.
What it is made of
House colour
Your own colours — over the palette
Years on it
The chipping, the chalking, the bead sparkle and the rust bloom from the
fixing holes are drawn at the size they are on the real plate — so they show in a 600 dpi print and not
on a thumbnail, which is the right way round.
What the year asks for — and why
For the sign maker
A sign is usually bigger than any sheet, so the press view tiles it with
an overlap to trim into. The blank’s outline goes to the PDF as a spot CutContour plate, which is
what a die maker or a router reads.
Checks — what an audience could catch
Variants — the same sign, several ways
The same piece, several ways, in one pass. Everything you are not
varying is held still, so the “same” design really is the same design.
Print at 100% / actual size, margins none. Every place, road number,
operator, shop, hospital, firm and substance is invented — see the Checks panel for what dates a sign.