British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commission, it became an independent statutory corporation in January 1963, when it was formally renamed the British Railways Board.
National Rail (NR) is the trading name licensed for use by the Rail Delivery Group, an unincorporated association whose membership consists of the passenger train operating companies (TOCs) of England, Scotland, and Wales. The TOCs run the passenger services previously provided by the British Railways Board, from 1965 using the brand name British Rail. Northern Ireland, which is bordered by the Republic of Ireland, has a different system. National Rail services share a ticketing structure and inter-availability that generally do not extend to services which were not part of British Rail.
Frutiger is a series of typefaces named after its Swiss designer, Adrian Frutiger. Frutiger is a humanist sans-serif typeface, intended to be clear and highly legible at a distance or at small text sizes. A popular design worldwide, type designer Steve Matteson described its structure as "the best choice for legibility in pretty much any situation" at small text sizes, while Erik Spiekermann named it as "the best general typeface ever".
Gill Sans is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Eric Gill and released by the British branch of Monotype from 1928 onwards.
The Tyne and Wear Metro is an overground and underground light rail rapid transit system serving Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, and the City of Sunderland. It has been described as the "first modern light rail system in the United Kingdom". The system is currently both owned and operated by the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive (Nexus), thus is fully under public ownership and operation.
A gender symbol is a pictogram or glyph used to represent sex and gender, for example in biology and medicine, in genealogy, or in the sociological fields of gender politics, LGBT subculture and identity politics.
Johnston is a sans-serif typeface designed by and named after Edward Johnston. The typeface was commissioned in 1913 by Frank Pick, commercial manager of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London, as part of his plan to strengthen the company's corporate identity. Johnston was originally created for printing, but it rapidly became used for the enamel station signs of the Underground system as well.
British Rail was the brand image of the nationalised railway owner and operator in Great Britain, the British Railways Board, used from 1965 until its breakup and sell-off from 1993 onwards.
Margaret Vivienne Calvert is a British typographer and graphic designer who, with colleague Jock Kinneir, designed many of the road signs used throughout the United Kingdom, Crown Dependencies, and British Overseas Territories, as well as the Transport font used on road signs, the Rail Alphabet font used on the British railway system, and an early version of the signs used in airports. The typeface developed by Kinneir and Calvert was further developed into New Transport and used for the single domain GOV.UK website in the United Kingdom.
Rotis is a typeface developed in 1988 by Otl Aicher, a German graphic designer and typographer. In Rotis, Aicher explores an attempt at maximum legibility through a highly unified yet varied typeface family that ranges from full serif, glyphic, and sans-serif. The four basic Rotis variants are:
Transport is a sans serif typeface first designed for road signs in the United Kingdom. It was created between 1957 and 1963 by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert as part of their work as designers for the Department of Transport's Anderson and Worboys committees.
DIN 1451 is a sans-serif typeface that is widely used for traffic, administrative and technical applications.
The Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions is the law that sets out the design and conditions of use of official traffic signs that can be lawfully placed on or near roads in Great Britain and the Isle of Man. The regulations, originally introduced in 1965, were the result of the review of British road signage carried out by the Worboys Committee.
Richard "Jock" Kinneir was a British typographer and graphic designer who, with his colleague Margaret Calvert, designed many of the road signs used throughout the United Kingdom, Crown Dependencies, and British overseas territories. Their system has become a model for modern road signage.
Motorway is a sans-serif typeface designed by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert for use on the motorway network of the United Kingdom. Motorway was first used on the M6 Preston bypass in 1958 and has been in use on the UK's motorways ever since. The typeface is also used in some other countries, most notably Ireland and Portugal.
The Design Research Unit (DRU) was one of the first generation of British design consultancies combining expertise in architecture, graphics and industrial design. It was founded by the managing director of Stuart Advertising Agency, Marcus Brumwell with Misha Black and Milner Gray in 1943. It became well known for its work in relation to the Festival of Britain in 1951 and its influential corporate identity project for British Rail in 1965. In 2004, DRU merged with Scott Brownrigg architects.
The British Rail Corporate Identity Manual is a corporate identity guide created in 1965 by British Rail. It was conceived in 1964, and finished in July 1965 by British Rail's Design Research Unit, and introduced British Rail's enduring double arrow logo, created by Gerald Barney and still in use today as the logo for National Rail. The manual spanned four volumes, and was created as part of a comprehensive redesign of British Rail following the Beeching Cuts as part of a plan to attract more passengers. It is noted as a piece of British design history.
The NR Brunel typeface is the Network Rail standard for signing at Network Rail managed stations.
The British Rail Double Arrow is a logo that was created for British Rail (BR), the then state-owned operator of Britain's railway network, in 1965. It has remained in use as part of the National Rail brand used for Britain's passenger rail services after the disbanding of British Rail, having been officially renamed as the National Rail Double Arrow and more recently being updated and reworked for continued use under the name Rail Symbol 2.
