FE-Schrift

The FE-Schrift or Fälschungserschwerende Schrift (German pronunciation: [fɛlʃʊŋsɐʃveːʁəndə ʃʁɪft]) ('forgery-impeding typeface') is a sans serif typeface introduced for use on license plates. Its monospaced letters and numbers are slightly disproportionate to prevent easy modification and to improve machine readability. The typeface was developed in West Germany and it has been mandatory on German license plates since November 2000.

The abbreviation "FE" is derived from the compound German adjective fälschungserschwerend combining the noun Fälschung ('falsification') and the verb erschweren ('to hinder'). Schrift means 'typeface' in German (cognate with the English word script). Other countries have later introduced the same or a derived typeface for license plates taking advantage of the proven design for the FE-Schrift.

The motivation for the creation of the typeface arose in the late 1970s in the light of terrorism by the Red Army Faction when it was discovered that with the then-standard font for vehicle registration plates—the DIN 1451 font—it was particularly easy to modify letters by applying a small amount of black paint or tape. For example, it was easy to change a "P" to an "R" or "B", a "3" to an "8", or an "L" or "F" to an "E". Modifications to FE-font plates are somewhat more difficult, as they also require the use of white paint, which is easily distinguished at a distance from the retroreflective white background of the plate, in particular at night.

The original design for the FE-Schrift typeface was created by Karlgeorg Hoefer who was working for the Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen (Federal Highway Institute of Germany) at the time. The typeface was slightly modified according to the results of tests that lasted from 1978 to 1980 at the University of Giessen (Department of Physiology and Cybernetic Psychology). For example, the initial slashed zero (${\displaystyle \emptyset }$) could be mistaken for an 8, so Hoefer replaced it by a design with a reduced white slash in the upper right corner. Whilst the DIN typeface used a proportional font, the FE-Schrift is a monospaced font (with different spacing for letters and numbers) for improved machine readability. Faked FE-Schrift letters (e.g., "P" to "R") appear conspicuously disproportionate.

Another motivation for the new typeface came from a spike in the theft rate of license plates in the early 1970s. And despite the requirement to hinder falsification, the scope document did list that point only in the second place. The first priority was a requirement for readability by humans and machines as the decade was the same that saw the development of other typefaces for optical character recognition, namely OCR-A and OCR-B. The RAF terrorism however allowed to fund a project over a couple of years — running from the functional scope document being created in 1977 to the final decision of 1982 not to introduce the design on license plates. It ended up in the drawer.

The final publication in German law for the usage on license plates includes three variants – normal script (Mittelschrift) with 75 mm high and 47.5 mm wide letters and 44.5 mm wide digits (2+15⁄16 in × 1+7⁄8 in × 1+3⁄4 in), narrow script (Engschrift) with 75 mm high and 40.5 mm wide letters and 38.5 wide digits (2+15⁄16 in × 1+5⁄8 in × 1+1⁄2 in) and a small script (verkleinerte Mittelschrift) with 49 mm high and 31 mm wide letters and 29 mm wide digits (2+5⁄16 in × 1+1⁄4 in × 1+1⁄8 in). The legal typeface includes umlaut vowels as these occur in German county codes at the start of the license plate number. The narrow font allows nine characters to be put on a standard Euro license plate — shorter numbers are supposed to be printed with larger spaces between characters as to fill the available space on the plate.

The German law defines the font in Anlage 4 ('appendix 4') of the Fahrzeugzulassungsverordnung ('vehicle admission ordinance'). In section 2.1 it shows three names for it as fälschungserschwerende Schrift, FE-Schrift and Schrift für Kfz-Kennzeichen ('font for license plates') with the latter to be used for requesting templates from the Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen (BASt, 'Federal Highway Research Institute'). Digital variants have never been published by them but there exist third party digitizations for free download, for example the font "Euro Plate".

When the FE-Schrift was finished in 1980 the pressure for its adoption had lessened already. Its distribution was furthered by another event being the introduction of the Euro license plate. With the fall of the Iron Curtain there was again a spike in the theft rate of license plates, including cars being stolen and moved to Eastern Europe. Again there was a motivation to prevent that with new regulations on license plates. In the new process the officials found the FE-Schrift which was fully developed and a perfect match for the automatic number-plate recognition technology that had developed to a usable state at the time.