If you’ve ever driven a vehicle in Switzerland, Belgium or Luxembourg, you’ve likely seen SNV through your windshield, sparkling with powerful utility on reflective aluminum signs by the roadside and on overpasses. Designed in 1972 by the Swiss utility gurus at the Verein Schweizer Straßenfachmänner foundry, and digitized and distributed commercially by URW as part of their Sign Collection, the typeface is still in use today on every traffic sign in Belgium & Luxembourg, although the Swiss have since begun using ASTRA-Frutiger.
SNV has a somewhat more squarish design aesthetic than its ovular cousin SAA, and also differs in that it contains a lowercase alphabet in addition to the uppercase, as opposed to the uppercase-only SAA Series A. SNV and SAA comprise the two basic typeface styles exhibited on most vehicle license plates in the United States and Canada. The font is available in three weights.
