I know this is a strange thing to talk about, but i want to discuss the various appearances of the “FIRE” and “ALERT” (and others) on alarms, as some are strange. For instance, the text on the wheelock ZNS is weird.
Speaking of the ZNS it seems that Wheelock uses some kind of proprietary font as I’ve searched for it with the help of several AI font finder sites & found nothing (or at least nothing that matched it exactly). This proprietary font appears to go all the way back to their WS-series strobe signals, which I think actually use the same font as their current NAs!
When it comes to the ZNS itself: the only weird thing I can really find about the text on it is that it’s not centered for some reason (though the text on the bilingual “FEU / FIRE” version is oddly enough, not vertically however).
there is no way it dates back to the WS. it definitely looked different. the NS, for instance, was far worse.
Per WhatTheFont, it looks to be closest to Varet Gotic or Steelplate Gothic Pro. The one in the middle, Government Issue JNL, looks to be closer to maybe something Gentex would use.
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That’s one of the websites I tried, but none of the fonts it showed me had the distinctive straight “stalk” on the “R” that most of Wheelock’s (at least) current devices have (that is, it’s not angled in line with the rest of the letter like most fonts’ “Rs” but is flat at the end, thus making a perfect rectangular shape).