Over ten years ago, Red Hat commissioned me to reinterpret the letterforms from the Standard Alphabets for Traffic Control Devices published by the U.S. Federal Highway Administration — the very ones seen on all U.S. interstate road signage — for use on screen. Starting from those original drawing specifications, critical adjustments were made to yield optimal results for screens with the initial family having just two weights: regular and bold. Later, there were a couple of updates, adding more weights and styles (Italics!), and importantly it was released as open source in 2016.
Today, I'm pleased to say this family just became even more versatile for you with the update to Overpass version 4.0, the latest iteration of our popular free and open source typeface. With this update, variable font technology is introduced and accessibility is greatly increased with support for over 300 languages, including the Cyrillic script, Vietnamese, Swahili, and many more. Overpass now tips the scales at 25 fonts total, including variable versions and the monospaced styles tailored for coding.
Yes, fonts are software and as such they can be updated, which is often done here at Delve Fonts in addition to creating new retail typefaces and custom fonts (hire us!).
Development for this update was made possible with sponsorship by Google Fonts, donations from individuals like you (Thank You!), and some additional pro-bono work on my part. Development of Overpass will continue so stay tuned and get in touch to request features, arrange sponsorship, or to make a donation for the next update.