Public Transit by Alec Marcus

Signage is one of the purest tests of typographic utility. Monumental amounts of research and revision go into the systems that we rely on to get where we’re going. Public signage systems are so integral to the day-to-day lives of city dwellers that they tend to transcend their original purpose — ultimately serving as a rich pedigree of typography, both defining and reflecting the visual identity of a city. 

  • Johnston ITC by ITC ft. David Farey, Richard Dawson, Edward Johnston

    Specimen

    Johnston’s London Underground Railway typeface was the first alphabet created for a specific corporate identity and the first sans serif design of the twentieth century. ErbarKabelFutura and Gill all follow Johnston’s type. Johnston himself, however, never called his design a typeface. It was an alphabet primarily for signage and other display purposes – designed to be legible at a glance rather than readable in passages of text. — ITC

  • Frutiger by Linotype ft. Adrian Frutiger

    Specimen

    In 1968, Adrian Frutiger was commissioned to develop a sign and directional system for the new Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. The family is neither strictly geometric nor humanistic in construction; its forms are designed so that each individual character is quickly and easily recognized. Although originally intended for the large scale of an airport, the full family has a warmth and subtlety that have made it popular for the smaller scale of body text in magazines and booklets. — Linotype

  • Albertus by Monotype ft. Berthold Wolpe

    Specimen

    In 1932, Monotype commissioned Berthold Wolpe to create the Albertus typeface. After World War II the City of London adopted Albertus as the font for all their street signs. Since then Albertus has been used on Sainsbury’s packaging, in cult-classic TV series, The Prisoner, on album covers of New Order, Coldplay, The Smiths and The Beach Boys, and on the crest of Liverpool FC. — Monotype