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Type division of French design studio Bureau Brut founded in 2017. Until the , typography was a specialized occupation. The way you put the font resources at the end of the article kept me reading throughout, even though this is the one thing I was looking for.

I came to love the dedication and belief she had in the art of type and what it could do on a printed page. Marchy Script come with 550+ glyphs.

Welcome to Type Connection, a typographic dating game. - And you can always come up with your own groups and labels for your collection of typefaces. Casual scripts include Mistral and Brush Script.

When British Rail unveiled its comprehensive corporate identity in 1964, one of the key elements which made it work was a new typeface. It was called Rail Alphabet and it has subsequently proved to be the most successful and long-lasting element of the corporate identity. It was designed to wipe out the existing hotchpotch of styles and motifs which had graphically illustrated the confused nature of the business from its creation in 1948 until that point. British Railways as it was publicly known until 1966 even had multiple typefaces in use on its signage and its trains. Most frequently seen was Gill Sans, a chilly all-upper case typeface dating from before the second world war and inherited from the London and North Eastern Railway. This bossy and sometimes difficult typeface seemed increasingly out of place in the more informal 1960s, as longstanding social norms were challenged or abandoned. Meanwhile, a condensed narrow rectangular font served for train numbers on many locomotives. Rail Alphabet was the answer to these challenges. It was a mixed upper and lower case typeface, instantly looking more friendly than Gill Sans. The company had been much impressed by launched in the 1960s. As Calvert would later explain, the problem was that Transport was designed to be quickly assimilated by drivers as road signs were approached at speed. In a station environment, where there was more time to read signage, speed of interpretation was no longer the key concern. If anyone can lay any claim to having branded Britain in the post-war period, it is surely Calvert and Kinneir. This is Charing Cross in 2002. Photo by James Gibbon at en. It is designed with simplicity in mind, to give information without the character of the lettering distracting from or overwhelming the message being conveyed. The mix of upper and lower case text was definitely easier to take in than the bossy all-upper case Gill Sans it replaced. As such it was the perfect typeface for British Rail, which was at the time trying to project a new image of low-key, straightforward competence, at some remove from its previous reputation for scandalous financial mismanagement and a confused strategic vision. The full version of , along with the tiling system that allowed the letters to be correctly spaced in relation to each other — a key concern given that signs were quite likely to be put together by hand; these were the days before everyone had access to desktop computers with installed fonts. Signage at stations was almost exclusively in black text on white backgrounds. It was a significant change from the Gill Sans signage it ousted, which had featured white text on darker coloured backgrounds. Only a cynic would note that it keeps sign manufacturers busy if transport operators are kept in a state of confusion as to which is better, and regularly swap between one and the other. Rail Alphabet signage at Preston station. All the lettering and numbers on trains bar some very minor exceptions was in Rail Alphabet, as was signage inside trains. It might not have been the most stylish typeface ever created, but Rail Alphabet was perfect for its job, and its lack of overt showiness has given it a timeless quality. A more obviously fashionable typeface would have dated much more quickly. Data panel on a British Rail locomotive. It did mean, however, that if you were in a hospital and presented with directional signage, there was a subconscious feeling that you might be about to miss a train. Vice versa, presented with directional signage at a railway station, you could sometimes get the queasy feeling that you were about to undergo an unpleasant medical procedure. At this point, an element of confusion creeps in. However, other sources put the direction of movement the other way round, and Calvert gave the distinct impression that Rail Alphabet was created for British Rail, when interviewed for the. InterCity rebranded in 1987, at which pointed it dispensed with Rail Alphabet for its logo. Its replacement was a spindly, all-upper case italicised typeface, which lacked the authority of Rail Alphabet and now looks a lot more dated. However, Rail Alphabet continued to be used for the carriage and locomotive numbers of InterCity trains and for signage at its stations. Though both Regional Railways and Network SouthEast also experimented with new typefaces, they too retained Rail Alphabet for station signage and technical lettering on trains. The only cohesive pre-privatisation move away from Rail Alphabet was made by the Parcels sector, which rebranded itself as Rail Express Systems in 1991 and used what I think is Frutiger for its train numbers and other signage. Charing Cross station in 1991. Network SouthEast has applied its own branding to the platform sign in the background, but the text remains in Rail Alphabet. The train numbers are also in Rail Alphabet. It would therefore do the job Rail Alphabet had once done; a suggestion to which the DfT cheerfully paid no heed whatsoever. That said, Rail Alphabet continues to play a key role on the national rail network. Rail Alphabet on a railway trackside safety notice. A surprising number of train operators still cleave to Rail Alphabet for their train numbers and sometimes station signage, however. Why, after all, meddle with something designed to work specifically on the railway system, unless you have very good reason to? Ian Allen: Shepperton Cousins, James 1986 : British Rail Design. Danish Design Council: Copenhagen Garfield, Simon 2010 : Just My Type. Profile Books: London Green, Chris and Hall, Professor Sir Peter 2009 : Better Rail Stations. Thanks for an interesting article. As far as I can tell, Rail Alphabet is still going strong at Arriva Trains Wales in particular. Thanks Alex, glad you enjoyed it. My particular least-favourite is the one used on the Network West Midlands stations around Birmingham. I more than agree that the Network West Midlands typeface looks childish and incredibly out of place.

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It has been proposed that were created with movable type printing, but German typographer recently dismissed this view. This was originally not intended as a complementary design, as is used today, but rather as an alternative, more informal typeface suitable for small volumes. Thanks Alex, glad you enjoyed it. Historian suggested in the 1920s that its influence may have been due to the high quality of printing shown in the original De Aetna volume, perhaps created as a small. Narrower characters simply get a bit more spacing around them to make up for the difference in width. Chicago-based type foundry established in 2013. Google Web Fonts Typography Project Another inspirational collection of typeface combinations from Google Fonts is on the website.