There is little to enjoy about motorway journeys. An endless black strip of Tarmac, fuzzy white lines and fuzzy green trees.
A motorway is all about getting from A to B in the quickest possible time, legally of course! But have you ever spared a thought for the signs dotted along Britain’s roads?
White lettering on a blue background shows a motorway whilst white on green signals a primary route. All drivers (should) know that and they’d recognise the lettering, regardless of where it was.
The modern roads of Britain’s look this way because of two graphic designers, Jock Kinneir and his former student Margaret Calvert. They standardised the road network, creating many of the signs you see today.
One of their biggest decisions was to have a mix of upper and lower case lettering in a clear sans serif font. The font, based on an early 20th Century German typeface called Aksidenz Grotesk became known as Transport.
“The actual word shape was the most distinctive thing because if you had Birmingham in capitals, from a distance, it’s difficult to read but in caps and lower case you have word shape,” said Calvert. “That was fundamental.”
Transport may not be a pretty typeface but it is one of the most effective and useful typefaces in the UK and Kinneir and Calvert’s signage changed the face of the British landscape and the style was utilised for modern road signage all around the world.
When you’re driving along at 70mph, the last thing you want to do is think ‘look at the lovely shape of this letters’. What you need is to be told where you are and where you turn off. The key to all this is not noticing it. When you are designing a typeface, especially for signage, you know you’ve got it right when no-one comments on it.
Jock Kinneir, who died in 1994, was resigned to this fact. In 1965, he acknowledged that his and Calvert’s designs fulfilled their function so efficiently that the public would take them for granted.
He was right, so next time you’re on the motorway, or pretty much any road, have a look at all the great graphic design there is around you in the shape of road signs, but please, keep your eyes on the road too!
