About Beltway Prophecy Irregular is an all-caps font containing two versions of most letters. The glyphs were digitally photographed from a found series of signs that dotted the U.S. Capital Beltway (I-495) at the turn of the milennium. All letterforms have been as accurately represented as possible, and only a few letters were invented.
Beltway Prophecy: How it happened
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As I accelerated my car down the Gallows Road ramp into the speeding traffic of the Washington D.C. beltway early one afternoon in the last months of 1999, a small white sign written in strange bold letters stared at me from the side of the road.
JESUS IS COMING,
the sign said.
I had a strong urge to stop right there in the middle of 70 M.P.H. traffic and take a picture. The sign whizzed by and I ruminated on the life expectancy of illegally posted Interstate signage. Would it be there tomorrow? Next week, when I might be by this way again?
I passed the next exit and the next. Just as the impulse to get off the beltway and go back was fading from my mind, another white sign appeared:
PREPARE TO MEET GOD
I swerved to the side of the road. It was a series! I ran to take the picture. I was returning to my car when a State patrol car pulled up. The trooper warned me I shouldn’t have stopped unless there was an emergency. I only considered obedience for a moment. I smiled. I was on a mission now. I had to go back.
I navigated the infamous I-95 “mixing bowl” twice to turn around. Somehow I took all the right exits and finally stopped at the bottom of the Gallows Road exit, where the first sign still waited. The result is our first font, BELTWAY PROPHECY IRREGULAR.
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