Stylogeny combining British Road Signage × Legible City Wayfinding

Try

Style combination · Contrasts

British Road Signage × Legible City Wayfinding

An influence from the same British public-information lineage, but road signs give drivers arrows and place names read at speed, while these totems give walkers a map to stand and read.

From the research on Legible City Wayfinding (Heads-Up Pedestrian Maps)

Mix them and make something British Road Signage Legible City Wayfinding

FormBritish Road Signage × Legible City
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from British Road Signage, their arrangement from British Road Signage, the finish from Legible City Wayfinding. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

01

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

British Road Signage (Kinneir & Calvert) Legible City Wayfinding (Heads-Up Pedestrian Maps)

Type from Legible City Wayfinding
Colour from British Road Signage
Form from British Road Signage
Composition from British Road Signage
Surface from Legible City Wayfinding

02

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Legible City Wayfinding

Form

Fira Sans, standing in for New Johnston, Transport for London's corporate humanist sans, used by AIG as Legible London's identifying font on its vitreous enamel and steel signs

Text · British Road Signage

The national sign system Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert designed for Britain's motorways, first used on the Preston By-pass in 1958, and through the Worboys Committee for all roads from 1 January 1965. Place names are set in mixed case in their Transport lettering, spaced on tiles measured in stroke widths. Colour codes the road (blue motorway, green primary with yellow numbers, white local, brown for tourism from the mid-1980s), red triangles warn and circles command with Calvert's pictograms, and junctions are drawn as maps: a kit of parts written into law.

Inter; British Road Signage used Transport (Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert, 1957–1963) and Motorway

03

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from British Road Signage, with a counter-accent from Legible City Wayfinding. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

British Road Signage (Kinneir & Calvert) Legible City Wayfinding (Heads-Up Pedestrian Maps)

  • #ffffff ground · 36%
  • #111111 ink · 14%
  • #ffd200 accent · 18%
  • #d6001c accent · 14%
  • #a9c8de accent · 10%
  • #1d5aa5 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #ffffff;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #ffd200;
  --accent-2: #d6001c;
  --accent-3: #a9c8de;
  --accent-4: #1d5aa5;
  --font-display: "Fira Sans", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Inter", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

British Road Signage (Kinneir & Calvert): These signs carry legal force: the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions prescribe them, so borrow the method (mixed case, colour and shape codes, a kit of parts) but never make a look-alike that a road user could take for a real traffic sign. The lettering is licensed too: GDS Transport is reserved for GOV.UK services, and New Transport is a commercial typeface from A2-Type.

04

The two styles

A blue, green and white road-style sign reads “Take a break” above a large parking symbol, a tree and a picnic table. Four smaller panels show toilets, a cup, cutlery and a fuel pump, with “2 miles” and a right-pointing arrow below. 1958–present · Western Europe British Road Signage (Kinneir & Calvert) The national sign system Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert designed for Britain's motorways, first used on the Preston By-pass in 1958, and through the Worboys Committee for all roads from 1 January 1965. Place names are set in mixed case in their Transport lettering, spaced on tiles measured in stroke widths. Colour codes the road (blue motorway, green primary with yellow numbers, white local, brown for tourism from the mid-1980s), red triangles warn and circles command with Calvert's pictograms, and junctions are drawn as maps: a kit of parts written into law. A wayfinding poster headed “Explore Nearby” shows a circular street map with waterways, green parks, landmark icons, and dashed five- and ten-minute walking rings around a yellow location marker. A legend sits at the upper right, with walking times and directions to four destinations along the bottom. 1999–present · Western Europe, North America, Global / networked Legible City Wayfinding (Heads-Up Pedestrian Maps) City-wide pedestrian wayfinding in which the sign is a map. Free-standing totems such as Legible London's Monolith, Midilith and Minilith carry 'heads-up' maps turned to the way the reader faces, a 'you are here' point ringed by a five-minute walking circle (fifteen minutes on the larger planner maps), and key landmarks drawn as small buildings on a flat street plan (in three dimensions in Bristol and London). A calm sans, high-contrast panels and one identifying accent, such as London's yellow top strip, make a single system of streets, stations, bus shelters and printed maps.

05

More combinations

With British Road Signage

With Legible City Wayfinding

Every style combination