This is a post connected with our work on Keighley's Supplementary Volume, under the proposal to add further names in 2024, the centenary of the original roll of honour.
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Supported by the National Lottery's Heritage Fund, our project will explain the reason for adding more names and the process by which the roll of honour was created. The unveiling of the book with it's new names is planned for November 2024, 100 years after the unveiling of the original war memorial.

Edward Johnston – guiding Londoners for 108 years!

Ask any Londoner standing outside a tube station or on a train about Edward Johnston and the chances are that you will be met with a blank, unknowing stare. This won’t necessarily be because of our legendary unwillingness to speak to strangers whilst using the Tube but will more likely be due to a genuine lack of knowledge of a man whose work still touches the lives of anyone who uses public transport in the capital or has any contact with the organisation now known as Transport for London.

The London Underground

The classic London Underground station roundel and signage, both the work of Edward Johnston

In 1913, Johnston was commissioned by Frank Pick, the Commercial Officer of the Underground Electric Railways Group, who wanted the company to adopt what would be today called a “corporate identity” with a distinctive design image, whether this be the vehicles and rolling stock operated by the company, the station buildings and of course, a unique typeface that marked the company’s posters and publicity, which had hitherto used a jumbled mixture of fonts and typefaces, typically in the heavy style fashionable at the time.
The new typeface known as Johnston Sans Serif, appeared in 1916 and was initially intended to be used only on posters and publicity material for the Underground Group but because of its balanced proportions and clean design, it gradually began to be used in other areas, such as station signage.

London Transport

The classic London “RT” type bus correctly dressed with Johnston font destination blinds

In 1933, London’s public transport network, which had previously consisted of disparate companies that operated various lines on the network, trams which were under municipal control, as well as buses and trolleybuses owned by a myriad of individual companies, was brought under the control of the London Passenger Transport Board, branded as “London Transport”. The former Underground Group chairman Lord Ashfield was at the helm of the new organisation and he brought Frank Pick with him as CEO.
The new organisation quickly gained a deserved reputation for design excellence and used the now familiar “bullseye” or roundel, adapted by Edward Johnston to adorn the bus stops, station signage and posters, all of which featured his classic typeface, which was also used on destination blinds for buses and trains.
To use today’s parlance, the typeface was and remains “fit for purpose”, unrivalled for clarity and a modernity which belies a typeface created well over a hundred years ago and which has undergone only some very slight and subtle modifications over the ensuing years.

Edward Johnston’s font and London Transport roundel at Warwick Avenue Station

Today, Edward Johnston’s influence continues to pervade almost every aspect of the capital’s public transport network, now operated by Transport for London, or TfL. One enters a station, the name of which is displayed outside in his classic typeface and inside repeated on the enamel station roundel signs, also designed by him. We board a bus whose route number and destination display is a model of clarity using his typeface and when we enter the station or board the bus, the company’s posters exhorting us to use the network, or to buy special tickets are still printed in his distinctive font.
And if as a motorist, you ever absent-mindedly enter the Congestion Charge zone, or have a non-ULEZ compliant vehicle, you can expect to receive a penalty charge notice written in Johnston font, so perhaps sometimes, his influence is less welcome to Londoners!

Blue Plaque

Edward Johnston Blue Plaque outside his former home in Hammersmith

2024 marks the eightieth anniversary of Edward Johnston’s passing and yet his name remains something of a mystery to most Londoners, even though a day rarely passes without almost each and every one of us seeing some aspect of his work hiding in plain sight. He is remembered in London by two memorials, which if you’re ever visiting the capital, you should try to seek out.
Firstly, there is an English Heritage/Greater London Council blue plaque unveiled in 1977 on the outside of his former home at 3 Hammersmith Terrace, London W6. Normally these plaques adhere to a very strict set of design criteria, including using a dedicated “Blue Plaque” font, from which the design is rarely allowed to deviate. Quite fittingly though, Johnston’s plaque is written in his own typeface, an honour shared by only three other people who are also inextricably linked with the creation of London Transport – the first chairman Lord Ashfield, Frank Pick who was responsible for commissioning Edward Johnston and Harry Beck, creator of the classic Underground Diagram.

Elizabeth Line

Edward Johnston Memorial at Farringdon Station.

Johnston’s other memorial is much more recent but equally fitting and was installed at Farringdon Station when the station was modernised and enlarged to accommodate the Elizabeth Line. This was unveiled in 2019 and takes the form of an oversized woodtype featuring the letters of the alphabet in Johnston Sans Serif, together with an informative plaque.
Truly a fitting location for a memorial to a man whose work we see every day and which has assisted countless Londoners and visitors to our capital in getting around town!

All content and photographs kindly supplied by Steve Hunnisett Blitzwalker