Transport

I temporarily left thoughts of burgers behind me whilst I continued to the Bus Station car park, which triggered another signage fact somewhere within my memory.
Perhaps it was my train, rather than motorway, journeys over to Preston which led me to forget possibly the biggest connection between Preston and Sign Design? 

The outstanding motorway signage designed by Jock Kinneir and Maraget Calvert had it's premiere on Britain's first motorway: the Preston By-pass in 1958, which then became the M6.


I've made a few motorway signs myself, when I worked for a large sign company, so it's surprising this slipped my mind, although there are many memories of that company I like to forget this isn't one of them. The 'Transport' typeface used to this day (although revised) is outstanding, due to Kinneir and Calvert's study of the Grandfather of sans-serif type Akzidenz-Grotesk (The Berthold type foundry version). This definitely needs further delving into. I'd like to find the original site of the first sign and what is there now. 

At this point it became clear that I should promptly transport myself home and start to research this further. 

Helvetica Hamburgers

Hamburgers

Hamburgers

Hamburgers

Hamburgers

Hamburgers

After I walked away from the empty timetable stands I started to dredge my brain for information on the International Typographic Style origins. It was when I walked past the cafe that I remembered the communication between the creators of Helvetica, Eduard Hoffmann and Max Miedinger. When Miedinger was designing Helvetica (then called New Haas Grotesk) he would draw his revised designs for Hoffmann using the word 'Hamburgers' as this contained a good variety of letters. It was clear that I needed to go back and research the origins of Helvetica and of the International Typographic Style.

Returning to arriving at 6 - minutes past 63 / 14 minutes to 12

I returned to Preston on Friday 24th January and yet again I predictably headed straight for the Bus Station. I was still fixated with the Bus Station's informational 'Lost Property' i.e. missing letter parts and the missing coherence of the original, intended Helvetica typeface etc.  

The first thing I was drawn to this 'time' however wasn't the station's signage but it's timetable stands, some of which were void of time or direction but did include indicators used by the installers of the stands e.g. 'A'. 

'A' often seems like a good place to start.

These empty timetable stands were crying out for an intervention of some kind. The connection between the missing timetables and the missing 'correct' time on the station's clocks was something that interested me immediately.