When I lived in Los Angeles during and after college, I found it baffling that there were two distinct styles of white and blue street signs in the city, sometimes even on the same corner. It looked as if a new style of sign had replaced the older, but they hadn’t bothered to take the old ones down.

I considered the older, all-caps style to be FAR cooler. Thinking they might disappear at any time, I took a lot of pictures, trying to capture all of the letter styles that were used to fit different names on a single-sized sign.

Turns out there are many fans of these signs, who have nicknamed them “shotgun style” based on the shape, or “bird nest” because birds like to build nests between the panels. These signs were produced for less than twenty years (1946-62) but are so durable they are still in use.

The letters also reminded me of the famous Hollywood sign, originally built in 1923. I have not been able to find out if the street signs were an homage or not, but that connection did eventually lead to a name for the font (see below).

When I created the alphabet of big, beveled letters for my son's high school signage, I realized that those letters were the perfect start to the street sign font. I completed that uppercase alphabet in regular and bold, then stretched it to match the street signs, to figure out the default widths & weights.

Once I'd figured out the widest and narrowest versions, I generated a variable font that could stretch and size to match any size lettering on the signs. I also couldn’t resist adding all of the cool little “TH” “ST” contractions and arrows!

It was coming along, but there were more ideas in my “blocky beveled” folder yet to be explored.

More recently, I was able to visit Mendenhall's Museum, an eyeball-melting collection of road signs and car memorabilia in Buellton, CA. It's only about 45 minutes north of me, but feels like a time machine that takes you back 70 years.

I was especially fascinated by the road signs below, which I’d never seen before. The lettering is a really simple block style, but like the LA street signs, is stretched and squeezed into all kinds of widths and weights.

Turns out that 100 years ago, when cars were a new phenomenon and most of the roads unmarked, regional Auto Clubs formed to publish maps and post signs to help drivers find their way around. Auto club workers traveled the roads with paint and brushes to touch up dents and scratches!

Then in the 1940s the U.S. Dept. of Public Works standardized road signage nationally, and these delightfully idiosyncratic local signs were removed (but fortunately saved by the Mendenhalls!).

The lettering on these had a certain rigid logic to it, while simultaneously seeming a bit random and almost expressive within the rigid limits. They are definitely much wilder and exciting than anything you'd see on roads today!

The first day of my sophomore year at UCLA, I met the cutest girl I'd ever seen. Unfortunately she was playing percussion in her boyfriend’s band.

Years (and boyfriends) passed, and I found myself riding in her car to shop the thrift stores on Melrose Avenue. She made an unexpected detour to take me by the street where she grew up: Beachwood Drive in Hollywood. As we neared her old apartment, we were treated to this perfect, straight-on view of the iconic Hollywood sign:

While working on this font, and realizing its similarity to the Hollywood sign, I was reminded of that trip up Beachwood Drive, and decided that "Beachwood" would be the perfect name for the font. So of course a secret feature had to be:

As for Starshine, she was funny, smart… and her parents had season tickets to the Raiders?!? I’d found the perfect woman. Thirty-plus years, two kids and three dogs later, we're still enjoying the ride together!