Weird subway signage

[avram]

Just noticed this today on the subway:

Isn’t that weird? The Os are sideways, all of them. The N in lean is slightly shaved off on the right edge; compare it to the N in not. And the letters in lean don’t seem to have the same baseline.

What the hell is up with that? I thought it was some kind of pranked-up fake sign at first, but all of the Do not lean on door signs were like that.

Update: Here's a sharper photo on Gothamist earlier this year.

Comments

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I noticed this today, too.

[redbird]

Maybe someone thought it would be cute to set the word "lean" so the letters were leaning slightly?

Those o's don't, in that image, look soideways to me, they look like they're in the same font as the n's, and don't match the D's, r, or t.

[avram]

I've cooked up a quick example to illustrate. The font here is Helvetica Neue 65 Medium. I'm not certain it's the exact same version of Helvetica used in the original sign, but it's as close as I can get.

The top line is set normally. For the bottom line, I duplicated the top line, chopped out the Os, and replaced them with Os that had been rotated 90°. I also chopped out the N in lean and replaced it with an upside-down U to test Barking_Iguana's theory.

Compare the appearance of the Os in the two lines, then look back up at the original photo. See it now?

I remain unconvinced about the upside-down U.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

I don't see the thing with the o's, either. I think the letters were manually pasted at some point in the process, accounting for the messed up "lean" and for one of the n's being an upside down u.