Conrad Altmann of Studio Holladay writes on his blog:
The city of Santa Cruz asked us to develop a system of wayfinding signage for (potentially) the entire city, but beginning with directional signs for the new stadium and downtown parking. The challenge that we were faced with was that the designs needed to adhere exactly to the MUTCD traffic signage standards as well as the material limitations of only two dozen colors and plotter-cut plastic on aluminum.
I thrive on projects that require me to limit myself to a narrow aperture, while allowing me to otherwise be creative.
We used Wayfinding Sans Pro from Ralf Herrmann of fonts.info because of its modernity, proven legibility, and beautifully simple letterforms. The layout of the signs was determined through the possibility of many different words and phrases while still maintaining a consistent look and grid. The signs also needed to often stack on the same pole, so they needed to be able to be visually separated at a glance, while still communicating the direction.