London Transport (Ed. Johnston, 1916)

A fonte que Edward Johnston desenhou para o metropolitano de Londres. Os «London Underground typefaces» desenhados em 1915/16.

Desenho para a caixa-alta da Johnston Sans, Junho de1916.

Em 1916, Frank Pick (1878-1941) encomendou ao tipógrafo Edward Johnston um super-legible typeface para usar na sinalética e nos horários da Underground.

Em 1918, Edward Johnston começou o redesign do símbolo redondo usado pelo Underground Group desde 1907.

O símbolo redondo usado pelo Underground Group desde 1907

Edward Johnston's Alphabet para o Underground

Os mapas do Underground

Os primeiros mapas das linhas do «Tube» seguiam o desenho geográfico convencional. Mas em 1933, Harry Beck (1903-1974), convenceu a recém-formada empresa municipal London Transport a adoptar um mapa diagramático. As linhas verticais, horizontais e diagonais com um ângulo de 45º revelam a formação profissional de Beck, que tinha aprendido a desenhar esquemas eléctricos.

Para além de a leitura ser mais fácil, a principal vantagem deste mapa era permitir a ampliação da zona central, mais densa em linhas e paragens do que as zonas periféricas de Londres. O sucesso deste tipo de mapa esquemático fez com que fosse imitado em todo o mundo.

Informações complementares

For years, the Underground Group had taken over smaller companies running bus and tram networks in London. In 1933, all the city’s transport companies – five underground railway companies, seventeen tramways and sixty-six bus companies – were merged into one, the London Passenger Transport Board and Frank Pick was appointed as managing director.

The challenge of merging these companies into a coherent network, which could then expand to meet the fast-growing city’s future transport needs, gave him an even bigger canvas to work on.

Adopting Edward Johnston’s roundel as the symbol of the new LPTB – or London Transport, as it was called for short – Pick proceeded to instil the new company which the same high design standards that had proved so successful at the Underground Group.

The German-born graphic designer Hans Schleger (1898-1976), who had created witty collaged posters for Pick, was commissioned to convert Edward Johnston’s roundel symbol into the bus stop signs which were being introduced throughout London, as it was no longer practicable for buses to stop wherever passengers hailed them.

Links exteriores

Edward Johnston Foundation

Bibliografia

Justin Howes. Johnston's Underground Type. Capital Transport Publishing, in association with London Transport Museum. ISBN 185414 231 3

Temas relacionados

A fonte Gill Sans de Eric Gill

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