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Tranemo is a geometric sans-serif. A modern interpretation of the typeface used on road signs in Sweden.

Tranemo Light, Light Italic, Regular, Regular Italic, Medium, Medium Italic, Semibold, Semibold Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Extrabold, Extrabold Italic, Black, Black Italic and Variable.

Tranemo
Light
Light
Swedish
Size
Line height
Letter-spacing
24px
Nästa hållplats, Årstaberg
Tranemo Italic
Black
Black
English
Size
Line height
Letter-spacing
24px
There’s a huge traffic jam on the highway

Tranemo
Bold

Opentype features

The OpenType format defines a number of typographic features a font may support. This enable a font to e.g. specify alternate letterforms such as small-caps.

Software – e.g. Adobe InDesign or Affinity Publisher – let users enable this.

Web browsers supporting CSS Fonts Module Level 3 support this via 'font-feature-settings'.

Following Opentype features are supported by Tranemo.

Small caps

Small caps. Replace lower-case letters with small caps version. Tag: 'smcp'

0123456789

Tabular figures. Replace figures with glyphs of uniform width. Perfect to vertically align in a column. Tag: 'tnum'

1/3 is 3/9 and 90/270

Fractions. Converts figures separated by slash with diagonal fraction. Tag: 'frac'

Example 0123456789

Denominator. Converts to appropriate fraction denominator form. Tag: 'dnom'

Example 0123456789

Numerator. Converts to appropriate fraction numerator form. Tag: 'numr'

Fe2O3

Inferiors. Replace figures with inferior figures, primarily for chemical or mathematical notation. Tag: 'sinf'

A1 small2, Swedish3 type foundry.

Superiors. Replace figures with superior figures, primarily for footnote indication. Tag: 'sups'

({[A@B]})

Case sensitive forms. Replace characters, especially punctuation, with forms better suited for all-capital text. Tag: 'case'

just theft toffifee

Stylistic Set 1. Replace f, t and j with alternative wider character. A separate axis in the variable font. Tag: 'ss01'


Showing design differences between Tranemo and Tratex

Tranemo bring better curves, more contrast, and consistent angular transitions amongst other improvements.

About Tranemo

Tranemo is a geometric sans-serif. A modern interpretation of the typeface used on road signs in Sweden. For Swedish people, Tranemo brings to mind an authoritarian and credible – but friendly – voice. A typeface Swedish people have a relationship to.

Swedish traffic sign on wall showing with parking information

Signs using Tratex are omnipresent all over Sweden, not only along the roads.

Compared to the source of inspiration, Tranemo adds more weights, an italic counterpart, better language support and Opentype features. It’s designed in line with what’s expected from a modern typeface, including optimised for screen and available as a variable font.

Tranemo is better suited for long text use with it’s generous letter spacing. A good fit for identity work and display settings. Performing well both on screen and in print, making it perfect for the next-door startup.

Old Swedish street name sign on concrete wall

An older version of Tratex used on street signs in Gothenburg. E.g. the letter “s” resembles Tranemo with its narrow design.

The original – Tratex, short for “traffic text” – is developed for maximal readability on Swedish road conditions. Tranemo is not intended to replace it for this purpose. In the original, many glyphs are missing and are miss-placed. A two weight typeface (light and dark) with a narrow area of use. Tranemo aims to correct this and bring the familiar lettershapes – with all its quirks – to more people by supporting more languages.

The design of Tranemo started as a design exercise. Road signs are omnipresent in all our cities. For a trained eye it’s not hard to see it was engineered rather than designed. How could I maintain the feeling of the typeface, make it more consistent and carry that into a type family? Happy with how it progressed, I decided to finalise it and release it as my first retail font.

  • Design credits

    • Andreas Nymark
    • Stefan Hattenbach (feedback)
    • Kåge Gustafsson (original)
  • Released

    2021

  • Format

    OTF, WOFF, WOFF2, TTF (variable font)

  • Downloads

  • Features

    Small caps, fractions, tabular figures, case sensitive forms, numerators, denominators, inferiors, superiors and stylistic set 1.

  • Weights and styles

    Light, light italic, regular, italic, medium, medium italic, bold, bold italic, extrabold, extrabold italic, black, black italic. Variable font with weight, italic and stylistic set 1 axis.

  • Supported languages

    Afrikaans, Albanian, Asu, Basque, Bemba, Bena, Bosnian, Catalan, Chiga, Colognian, Cornish, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Filipino, Finnish, French, Friulian, Galician, Ganda, German, German (Switzerland), Gusii, Hungarian, Icelandic, Inari Sami, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jola-Fonyi, Kabuverdianu, Kalenjin, Kinyarwanda, Latvian, Lithuanian, Low German, Lower Sorbian, Luo, Luxembourgish, Luyia, Machame, Makhuwa-Meetto, Makonde, Malagasy, Malay, Maltese, Manx, Maori, Morisyen, North Ndebele, Northern Sami, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, Nyankole, Oromo, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Romansh, Rombo, Rundi, Rwa, Samburu, Sango, Sangu, Scottish Gaelic, Sena, Serbian (Latin), Shambala, Shona, Slovak, Slovenian, Soga, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Swahili (Congo - Kinshasa), Swedish, Swiss German, Taita, Teso, Turkish, Upper Sorbian, Vunjo, Welsh, Western Frisian, Wolof, Zulu