 |
Britain’s signature
You can’t brand a decade any more than you can brand a nation. But for many, Margaret Calvert’s lettering left a big stamp on Britain in the 1960s. The public projects carried out by Jock Kinneir and Calvert, from the late 1950s, when they designed signs for Gatwick airport, through to 1965, when they completed the signing system for British Railways, bear the hand of South African-born Calvert, who drew the letterforms.
Kinneir Calvert signed the motorways and roads with their Transport alphabet (see Eye no. 34 vol. 9). Rail Alphabet was drawn to be read in a slower, pedestrian context: signs for NHS hospitals and airports and rail stations. The original Rail Alphabet was produced purely for signing, and later adopted by DSB, the Danish railway corporation, where it was used until 1997.
In Britain, Kinneir Calvert’s sign system began to disappear in the 1990s, as British Rail was privatised and split into smaller companies, each with its own logo and type. Station signs, the responsibility of Railtrack (the group in charge of the infrastructure), were eventually replaced by The Foundry’s custom typeface Brunel.
In 2005, A2’s Henrik Kubel and Scott Williams approached Calvert with the idea of digitising Rail Alphabet for a touring British art project. Calvert, who had taught the Danish-born Kubel at the Royal College of Art in the 1990s, agreed. Kubel traced the original letterforms and produced a complete typeface in one weight. He and Williams never got to use it for that project, but subsequently employed it in their catalogue Jane and Louise Wilson for the quad exhibition in 2008.
Then, early in 2008, Calvert received a call from a Spanish company that wanted to produce a version of Rail Alphabet for a corporate client. She replied that the typeface was already in the process of digitisation, and promptly renewed contact with Kubel. ‘I asked Henrik if he was interested and of course he was.’ . . .
|
|
