Prototype modeling - how far can you take it?

[nachoman]

I saw a curious film on PBS a year or so ago whose subject and title seem boring - Helvetica. Yes, the film was about the development of a font! From that film I learned what a "serif" is, and in some small way made more aware of what fonts I see in every day life, and why the designer chose to use that particular font. As boring as the subject matter is - every font was developed by someone for some particular purpose and made its first appearance on some particular date.

What does this have to do with model railroading? Well, at the time I was developing a sheet of custom decal signs for some buildings - and lo and behold some of my text was in Helvetica! Why does this matter? Helvetica was developed in 1957, and my layout is set in 1919. Not that I would ever expect anyone to notice - but that is the level of detail that one can research for their layout - if they want to go insane . So, perhaps you are making some signs for your layout. Simple billboards, street signs, station names or etcetera. Maybe it is important to pay attention to what fonts were common for your era - or you can just use what looks good The reality is, the standard fonts in Microsoft Word are probably all to modern for the discerning eye - unless you are modeling a modern era.