 | |
| Category | Sans-serif |
|---|---|
| Classification | Grotesque Mixed Signage |
| Designer(s) | Jock Kinneir Margaret Calvert |
| Date created | 1963 |
 | |
| Sample | |
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. [1] [2]
Before its introduction, British road signs used the capitals-only Llewellyn-Smith alphabet that was introduced following the Maybury Report of 1933 and revised in 1955–57. Older signs, known as fingerposts, tended to use a variety of sans serif alphabets as supplied by their manufacturers. For the kinds of roads on which either of these alphabets was likely to be seen, legibility was not a pressing issue, but the planning and building of Britain's first motorway in the 1950s was a catalyst for change.
The Ministry of Transport appointed an Advisory Committee on Traffic Signs for Motorways under the chairmanship of Sir Colin Anderson in 1957 and Jock Kinneir and his assistant Margaret Calvert were appointed as graphic designers to it. All aspects of signing were investigated and tested, initially on the Preston bypass (1958, now part of the M6 motorway), before their introduction on the (London–Yorkshire) M1 motorway a year later. The committee looked at examples from other European countries as well as the USA but Kinneir and Calvert found them somewhat harsh and unsatisfactory. Instead, they developed a more rounded typeface with distinctive tails to 'a', 't', and 'l', and bar-less fractions, all of which helped legibility.
The department, seeing the successful early results of this work then appointed another committee, under the chairmanship of Sir Walter Worboys and again using Kinneir and Calvert as designers, to look at Traffic Signs for All-Purpose Roads. Work for this also resulted in the introduction of the pictogram signs based on those recommended by the 1949 United Nations World Conference on Road and Motor Transport.
Two forms of the typeface exist; Transport Medium and Transport Heavy. [3] Both have the same basic form, but Transport Heavy is boldface, to allow easier readability of black letters on white backgrounds, such as those used on non-primary roads, while Transport Medium is lighter, and is used for white letters on dark backgrounds, such as the green primary-route signs. [4]
The Transport typefaces are the only ones allowed on UK road signs (except for motorway signs, where route numbers appear in their own separate typeface known as Motorway). [5]
Only a limited number of symbols are available in Transport, mainly those commonly used in road signs, such as apostrophes, the pound sign and certain vulgar fractions such as ½ and ⅓. [6] Various diacritics are also available, for use in languages other than English, such as Welsh and Irish.
Although developed in the United Kingdom, the typeface has been used in many other countries around the world. In addition to the Crown dependencies, British overseas territories and some limited residual usage in Commonwealth states, the typeface is also used in Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Greece, and Portugal, and in much of the Middle East. Denmark uses a variation with added spacing and modified figures. Italy and Spain use bolder variants, called Alfabeto Normale in Italy and Carretera Convencional in Spain (the latter originally only on non-motorway roads, but since 2014 it applies to any new sign both on motorway and non-motorway roads).
In countries where other scripts (such as the Perso-Arabic script) are used, Transport is often used for Latin transliterations. [1] [7] Road signs in the Republic of Ireland use all-caps Transport Heavy for English names; for Irish names, mixed-case Transport Heavy oblique is used with variants for A, a, i, M and N: script a, dotless i, and tall versions of m and n.
In Indonesia, since April 2014, changeable message signs/electronic signs have used Transport. [8]
The original Transport family, with its two weights, has been digitised by URW++. [3]
It is an updated and expanded version of the original typeface, been developed by Henrik Kubel of A2/SW/HK Limited and Margaret Calvert during 2012.
The original release includes six different weights (Thin, Light, Regular, Medium, Bold, Black) with complementary oblique stylings. It also has other features including text figures and small capitals. [9] Semibold weight was added between 2018-08-29 [10] and 2018-09-02. [11]
Logo of the American cybersecurity and data backup company, Datto, Inc. used New Transport Medium typeface.
It is a custom version of New Transport designed by New Transport designers, for use in the UK Government Digital Service web site (GOV.UK) in 2012, where it has been selected as the sole font for all text. [12] [13]
An updated though unofficial family based upon Transport was first released by independent foundry K-Type in 2008. The family includes Light, Medium and Heavy weights along with true italics which were added in 2015. [14]
This family is the main UI typeface of Untitled Goose Game made by House House in 2019.
Jörg Hemker designed two typefaces that are inspired from the Transport typeface: FF Nort and FF Nort Headline. Both typefaces support Greek and Cyrillic. [15] [16]
Futura is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Paul Renner and released in 1927. It was designed as a contribution on the New Frankfurt-project. It is based on geometric shapes, especially the circle, similar in spirit to the Bauhaus design style of the period. It was developed as a typeface by the Bauer Type Foundry, in competition with Ludwig & Mayer's seminal Erbar typeface of 1926.
Rail Alphabet is a neo-grotesque sans-serif typeface designed by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert for signage on the British Rail network. First used at Liverpool Street station, it was then adopted by the Design Research Unit (DRU) as part of their comprehensive 1965 rebranding of the company.
Road signs in the United Kingdom and in its associated Crown dependencies and overseas territories conform broadly to European design norms, though a number of signs are unique: direction signs omit European route numbers and road signs generally use the Imperial System of units, unlike the rest of Europe. Signs in Wales and parts of Scotland are bilingual.
A street name sign is a type of traffic sign used to identify named roads, generally those that do not qualify as expressways or highways. Street name signs are most often found posted at intersections; sometimes, especially in the United States, in perpendicularly oriented pairs identifying each of the crossing streets.
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.
Gaelic type is a family of Insular script typefaces devised for printing Classical Gaelic. It was widely used from the 16th century until the mid-18th century in Scotland and the mid-20th century in Ireland, but is now rarely used. Sometimes, all Gaelic typefaces are called Celtic or uncial although most Gaelic types are not uncials. The "Anglo-Saxon" types of the 17th century are included in this category because both the Anglo-Saxon types and the Gaelic/Irish types derive from the insular manuscript hand.
Highway Gothic is a sans-serif typeface developed by the United States Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and used for road signage in the Americas, including the U.S., Canada, Latin America and some Caribbean countries, as well as in Asian countries influenced by American signage practices, including the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.
A fingerpost is a type of sign post consisting of a post with one or more arms, known as fingers, pointing in the direction of travel to places named on the fingers, often including distance information.
DIN 1451 is a sans-serif typeface that is widely used for traffic, administrative and technical applications.
Herbert Spencer was a British designer, editor, writer, photographer and teacher. He was born in London.
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.
European traffic signs present relevant differences between countries despite an apparent uniformity and standardisation. Most European countries refer to the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals. The convention has been adopted by the following countries : Albania, Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. The convention has not been adopted by Ireland, Iceland or Malta.
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.
Sir Walter John Worboys, was an Australian-born British businessman and chemist. He is best known for widely reforming road traffic signage in the United Kingdom.
The Worboys Committee was formed by the British government to review signage on all British roads. In its July 1963 report Traffic signs: report of the committee on traffic signs for all-purpose roads, it found existing road signs to be obsolete for the increasing numbers of motor vehicles and their increasing speeds, and made over a dozen key recommendations. The committee went on to completely revise road signs in Britain, with an emphasis on symbols alone, adopting standard colour and shape practices used in mainland Europe and a new typeface. Its principles were adopted and are still the basis of all road signs in the United Kingdom.
Cochin is a serif typeface. It was originally produced in 1912 by Georges Peignot for the Paris foundry G. Peignot et Fils and was based on the copperplate engravings of 18th century French artist Charles-Nicolas Cochin, from which the typeface also takes its name. The font has a small x-height with long ascenders. Georges Peignot also created the design 'Nicolas-Cochin' as a looser variation in the same style.
The Buenos Aires Visual Plan was the first program to establish an organised system of traffic signs in the city of Buenos Aires, developed and implemented between 1971 and 1972. The plan had been thought by the Buenos Aires administration led by then Intendent Saturnino Montero Ruiz and carried out by the design studio managed by architects Guilermo González Ruiz and Ronald Shakespear.
This article is a summary of traffic signs used in each country.