Bureausign font

Bureausign is Bureau Gorbunov’s wayfinding font. It will be available to everyone for licensing and commercial use.

20th September 2018

Bureausign is a variable sans‑serif font for signage and wayfinding, featuring humanistic forms and a hint of physical materials. The family consists of six basic combinations of weight and proportions while the glyphs include icons and a number plates constructor.

Airports

Bureausign is a great option for airport wayfinding. The font is highly legible and has a characteristic plasticity, as if the letters were made of bent plastic tubes. Bureausign competes with such wayfinding fonts as Frutiger, Meta, and Wayfinding Sans.

Airports

Bureausign is a great option for airport wayfinding. The font is highly legible and has a characteristic plasticity, as if the letters were made of bent plastic tubes. Bureausign competes with such wayfinding fonts as Frutiger, Meta, and Wayfinding Sans.

Road signs

Bureausign allows for the fine adjustment of saturation, proportions, and letter spacing. This helps achieve greater legibility on road sign texts.

Variability

Bureausign is a variable font made by interpolation. It comes with four extreme faces: Light, Bold, Condensed Light, and Condensed Bold. There is also a range of interim options in between. The user can pick a face just a bit lighter than Regular or just a smidge wider than Condensed. This flexibility allows you to adjust the font for a particular project with a single font family.

In inverted signs, the text is light and the background is dark. The same font face looks differently depending on whether the background of the sign is light or dark. Light characters seem brighter when displayed with a dark background, so they look a bit thicker than they should. To eliminate that effect, the reverse printed text has to be compensated for by making it a little bit lighter. This is often just done by using a lighter font face, but the difference between regular and light font faces is too obvious.

With Bureausign, users decide how light they would like the letters to be.

With Bureausign, users decide how light they would like the letters to be.

With Bureausign, users decide how light they would like the letters to be.

Glyphs legibility

With Bureausign being a wayfinding font, it’s important for characters like I, l, and 1 to be distinguishable from a great distance away. By default, the font has generous tracking.

3 m
A person with normal vision can read a text line 23 cm high from a distance of up to 15⁠—17 meters away
3 m

Icons

Bureausign comes with icons for a variety of wayfinding tasks. Not only are they balanced out by their visual weight⁠—they also account for the purpose and meaning of an icon, i. e. a pedestrian is smaller than an escalator. Furthermore, the icons are adjusted in proportion and size to differ from the text labels.

Icons

Bureausign comes with icons for a variety of wayfinding tasks. Not only are they balanced out by their visual weight⁠—they also account for the purpose and meaning of an icon, i. e. a pedestrian is smaller than an escalator. Furthermore, the icons are adjusted in proportion and size to differ from the text labels.

In user interface

Although Bureausign was designed as a wayfinding font, it includes user interface icons as well.

Plates constructor

To put a number in a box or a circle, just enable discretionary ligatures.

{3}→

[54]→[54]

(20)→

<9>→

Plates constructor

To put a number in a box or a circle, just enable discretionary ligatures.

{3}→

[54]→[54]

(20)→

<9>→

Plates constructor

To put a number in a box or a circle, just enable discretionary ligatures.

{3}→

[54]→[54]

(20)→

<9>→

Bureausign brought about “icon ligatures”, where a staircase or escalator are combined with arrows into a single pictogram.

⇵↑=

⇕↓=

Bureausign brought about “icon ligatures”, where a staircase or escalator are combined with arrows into a single pictogram.

⇵↑=

⇕↓=

Bureausign brought about “icon ligatures”, where a staircase or escalator are combined with arrows into a single pictogram.

⇵↑=

⇕↓=

Try

Bureausign being a variable font, it can feature an infinite number of faces. Try these nine basic styles.

🚇 🚍🚎🚊🚆🚗🚕🚘🚢 🅿🛇 🚲 🚁 🚀🛧
🛩🛬 🚶 🚹🚺🚼🛐🛄🛅🏧📖
🚬 🚭🍴🍸📞 🛍🎁 🛒🛓 🌍🌐 📈
🔍🔎🔖🔗🕑🌙
🄌
🄋
🚇 🚍🚎🚊🚆🚗
🚕🚘🚢 🅿🛇 🚲
🚁 🚀🛧🛩🛬
🚶 🚹🚺🚼🛐
🛄🛅🏧📖
🚬 🚭🍴🍸📞
🛍🎁 🛒🛓 🌍🌐
📈
🔍🔎🔖🔗
🕑🌙
🄌
🄋

Supported languages

  • Беларускі
    Belarusian

  • Български
    Bulgarian

  • Català
    Catalan

  • Čeština
    Czech

  • Dansk
    Danish

  • Deutsch
    German

  • Eesti keel
    Estonian

  • English

  • Español
    Spanish

  • Filipino
    Filipino

  • Français
    French

  • Frysk
    Frisian

  • Hrvatski
    Croatian

  • Íslenska
    Icelandic

  • Italiano
    Italian

  • Қазақ тілі
    Kazakh

  • Latviešu
    Latvian

  • Lietuvių
    Lithuanian

  • Magyar
    Hungarian

  • Македонски
    Macedonian

  • Norsk
    Norwegian

  • Polski
    Polish

  • Português
    Portuguese

  • Русский
    Russian

  • Slovenščina
    Slovenian

  • Српски/Srpski
    Serbian

  • Suomi
    Finnish

  • Svenska
    Swedish

  • Українська
    Ukrainian

  • Беларускі
    Belarusian

  • Български
    Bulgarian

  • Català
    Catalan

  • Čeština
    Czech

  • Dansk
    Danish

  • Deutsch
    German

  • Eesti keel
    Estonian

  • English

  • Español
    Spanish

  • Filipino
    Filipino

  • Français
    French

  • Frysk
    Frisian

  • Hrvatski
    Croatian

  • Íslenska
    Icelandic

  • Italiano
    Italian

  • Қазақ тілі
    Kazakh

  • Latviešu
    Latvian

  • Lietuvių
    Lithuanian

  • Magyar
    Hungarian

  • Македонски
    Macedonian

  • Norsk
    Norwegian

  • Polski
    Polish

  • Português
    Portuguese

  • Русский
    Russian

  • Slovenščina
    Slovenian

  • Српски/Srpski
    Serbian

  • Suomi
    Finnish

  • Svenska
    Swedish

  • Українська
    Ukrainian

Numbers

843
glyphs
87
icons
faces

We’ll write you when this and other new fonts become available for purchase. No spam.

About the project

If you’re interested in using Bureausign for wayfinding in an urban, transport, educational, or medical facility, send us a message: hey@bureau.rocks

Start
28 Dec 2015 —
Launch
31 Dec 2016
12 months
Research & sketching
Basic styles
Interpolated styles
Art director

Artem Gorbunov

Designer

Anna Danilova

Visualizer

Vladimir Kolpakov

Pin
Share
Send