Best and worst instrument fonts

[grogee]

Some mates and I were having drinks on Saturday night and agreed that BLARG instrument fonts were usually "good" (attractive, easy to read etc). Here's the Ital:

But I've had quite a few cars with really chintzy fonts. My Avensis is horrible:

And I remember hating my Acclaim's lettering (we'll blame Honda for that rather than BL). 

What are your best/worst instrument lettering examples? 

[ProgRocker]

The phase 1 Nissan Almera N16 had italic font istr. 

[SiC]

I'm going to get hate for this on here but

Rover 75 instruments look naff.

[plasticvandan]

Best

Worst

[Cavcraft]

14 minutes ago, SiC said:

I'm going to get hate for this on here but

Rover 75 instruments look naff.

I think they look GR8, sorry.

[grogee]

21 minutes ago, SiC said:

I'm going to get hate for this on here but

Rover 75 instruments look naff.

Twee AF. Like a Chinese watch

[grogee]

Proper Planning Prevents Poor... 

Error Prevention

[captain_cal]

Best typeface, best everything. Look at the way the redline goes around the 7! Someone put a lot of thought into that.

Big up early 924s for their funky little redline too.

[Wibble]

Clear and simple:

 

[Aston Martin]

[Split_Pin]

Best: everyone knows what they look like but any Volvo from about 1980 until today. The font is the same throughout the whole car.

I also love the font in the 75 dash. Its supposed to be twee. Its not that some people don't like it, its just that it doesn't suit them. They should say that.

Worst is the slight typeface change in Audis from a very short period about 1999 to 2005. They changed it back after that as the short-term font was very anonymous. 

 

[Zelandeth]

47 minutes ago, Wibble said:

Clear and simple:

 

That dash also gets massive bonus points for the utterly pointless little bars above and below the warning lights.  Five year old me thought that feature on the dash of the Transit dad brought home from work occasionally was the coolest thing ever at the time.

Worst for me was the odd squared off font Ford used around 2015-ish on the Transit.  Had one as a rental and the speedometer drove me mad.

So utterly unnecessarily cluttered, especially with the kph scale being crammed in between the mph one.  It might have worked if the dial was about 30-50% larger, but that's just a mess.

[davehedgehog31]

The Alfa 145 had an absolutely shite instrument cluster for such a strikingly designed car, more befitting of a digger.

 

[Wibble]

I believe the Cortina instruments won a Design Council award.

[grogee]

1 hour ago, Wibble said:

Clear and simple:

 

If it pleases the court, may I say I hate that Vauxhall font. One stop short of Comic Sans Serif. Everything else about the instruments is great, but that shitty typeface can get in the sea. 

Ford on the other hand... Perfect. 

@captain_cal, yes top marks for Porsche. 

@Vantman no, see my rant on the Vauxhall. Not as bad but it's trying too hard to be friendly. I don't want to make friends with my instruments, I want to be able to read them without getting angry. 

@davehedgehog31 there really isn't anything wrong with that Alfa dash per se (apart from the fact it's incapable of showing 0mph, like all Italian cars). But I agree, it is very bargain basement and too generic. 

@Zelandeth agreed, that Transit is a mess. 

@Split_Pin yes, the Volvo clocks rock. 

From memory, I think the Koreans had some absolute shockers in the late 90s.

[AnnoyingPentium]

The one from the last shape Starlet (pre-Yaris) isn't something I can get with. Feels a bit too aftermarket Windows 95 font pack for me.

[horriblemercedes]

I'm curious what people think of these two. Saab 93 and Cadillac BLS. The same cluster, apart from the typeface, the needles and the colour of the back lighting (also, the scaling of the temperature and fuel level, on the right) . The Cadillac picture is my own, the Saab one is from the Internet. I personally prefer the white back lighting and the typeface on the Cadillac, and I had a 95 with the same typeface and colour as the 93.

 

 

[Zelandeth]

Volvo in the late 80s/early 90s got an odd mention for having a two coloured mask on what was essentially the check engine light.  I don't remember seeing that anywhere else.

Also something which intrigued younger me far more than it probably should.

[D.E]

I know, I know, it's just a prototype but it's one of the worst designs I've ever seen. What a mess.

[Markeh]

Considering the rest of the efforts into retro design, the clocks on the prefacelift PT Cruiser were pretty bland

Although not quite as gopping as these from an early 00s Voyager (I am sure they used a similar font in the Neon but having no luck tracking it down)

This one strangely appeals although it's a terrible choice of both font and colour. A Daihatsu YRV no less! I kind of would not mind one...

[Wibble]

40 minutes ago, grogee said:

If it pleases the court, may I say I hate that Vauxhall font. One stop short of Comic Sans Serif. Everything else about the instruments is great, but that shitty typeface can get in the sea. 

Ford on the other hand... Perfect. 

@captain_cal, yes top marks for Porsche. 

@Vantman no, see my rant on the Vauxhall. Not as bad but it's trying too hard to be friendly. I don't want to make friends with my instruments, I want to be able to read them without getting angry. 

@davehedgehog31 there really isn't anything wrong with that Alfa dash per se (apart from the fact it's incapable of showing 0mph, like all Italian cars). But I agree, it is very bargain basement and too generic. 

@Zelandeth agreed, that Transit is a mess. 

@Split_Pin yes, the Volvo clocks rock. 

From memory, I think the Koreans had some absolute shockers in the late 90s.

I genuinely cannot see where you’re coming from. How could they be any clearer?

[inconsistant]

Win

[hairnet]

love

strip speedos

ford 70s with the 5 square strip under the two dials

hate

blue volkswagen - the blue glow just make it hard to read

coloured dials - citroen mainly 

renault 80s - the fonts are ok but they light up and orange

ow

[Spiny Norman]

Never really thought of fonts on a dash before, I think the layout tends to be more important. Generally the Germans and Swedes do it best with the simple clear dials on VWs, BMWs and Saabs etc although the way the higher numbers are compressed together on a Saab 9-5 speedo annoyed me. 

 

I had a Daihatsu YRV and had to go back and look at the pictures of it to check if mine was as florid as the one posted above, but it was. 
I can't think of an actual font I found difficult to read or offensive but italics don't look right to me, I remember seeing something a while back that looked like the speedo was in Comic Sans and looked awful.

[Split_Pin]

+1 for Saabs having Good Fonts.

It must be my age/eyesight but I'm struggling to read half of the ones pictured. I know I have 20/20 vision (well I did at my last eye test in 1980).

[Snipes]

18 hours ago, grogee said:

But I've had quite a few cars with really chintzy fonts. My Avensis is horrible:

Looks fine to me. Clean, functional. Could do without the integrated digital displays though.

[mercedade]

The 986 Boxster dash is pathetic. It's such a childish looking font, like a video game from the 80s.

(I appreciate that there's the possibility that the reason it looks like a shitty Outrun prop is that they copied Porsche) 

[crad]

e110 corolla dash is superb. nice and simple. (photo aint the best)

[Peter C]

Lexus IS200 dials are, surely, the most ridiculous and pointless EVER!

[inconsistant]

1 hour ago, mercedade said:

The 986 Boxster dash is pathetic. It's such a childish looking font, like a video game from the 80s.

(I appreciate that there's the possibility that the reason it looks like a shitty Outrun prop is that they copied Porsche) 

At least it's easy to see when you've got two fourths of a tank of petrol.