Century old London Underground typography to be tweaked
Tube bosses are set to introduce the first change to London Underground’s typography in a century as Transport for London marks the 100 year anniversary of its ‘Johnston’ font.
The modified lettering will appear on all transport signage from next month although passengers are likely to remain largely oblivious as if you blink, you’ll miss the changes.
This is because designers have sought to retain as much of the original font as possible whilst updating it with lighter lettering which is said to be more pleasing to contemporary eyes, as well as being more adaptable for digital uses.
Jon Hunter, TfL head of design commented: “The Johnston typeface speaks of London like no other. It has been around 100 years. It will be around 100 more years if not longer. We just want to make sure it’s used consistently across all our branding and across all future branding platforms we may have, so we asked Monotype to go back to the original principles of Johnston, and create a digital typeface using the DNA of its truly iconic predecessor”.
The new look Johnston100 design has been conceived in order to better fit the social media age by providing a range of readymade digital fonts and will initially appear on printed materials such as Tube maps and posters.