The several tours of the Doctor Syntax bus stop via the Bus Station (route 35?) (In search of the Picturesque?)

Whilst looking at BlogPreston, I found a feature on lost places in Preston which immediately jumped out at me. In Lost Preston (part two) there is mention of a bus stop which names a public house that no longer exists. The public house was called 'Doctor Syntax', which was intriguing me due to the linguistic reference. This seemed a bizarre name for a pub. 

Then, finding the Pubs in Preston blog, I discovered a photograph of an incarnation of this pub which showed an image of a man on a horse on it's hanging sign, with Doctor Syntax written underneath. The blog detailed that the pub and had been located at 63 (and later 241) Flyde Road. 

On further research it became clear that the horse wasn't a specialist in sentence construction, but that the horse was a successful race horse in the 1800's which was named after a popular satirical poem from the time. This poem was called 'The Tour of Doctor Syntax in search of the Picturesque', written by William Combe*. 

The concept of a 'tour' appealed to me - a bus stop tour (of the Doctor syntax bus stop), the satirical tour within the poem and it's reference to authoritative language, a tour around a public house which doesn't exist and has been in two places. A tour of the bus stop of some sort could be organised or information designed on the information within the information of the bus stop and the poem?

* William Combe, Syntax (Dr. Fict. Name.) **

** Quote from the cover of 'The Tour of Doctor Syntax in search of the Picturesque, a poem'

The Rail Alphabet - outward to the past

Looking into Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert's motorway signage premiering in Preston, I discovered something that I should have known previously!

Referring to my type bible (The Field Guide to Typography) Kinneir and Calvert also designed the Rail Alphabet for the British Rail rebranding in 1964. This has since been replaced by the Brunel typeface, following the privatisation of British Rail in the 1990s. Previous to the Rail Alphabet Gill Sans was used.
In 2005 Henrik Kubel and Scott Williams (A2-TYPE) digitised Rail Alphabet with Margaret Calvert.
The double arrow symbol designed by the Design Research Unit in 1964, as part of the British Rail re-branding, is still used today. Helvetica is used for travel safety information at stations and on board trains.

This jumble of sans serif typefaces over a small amount of time reminds me of my first jumbled travel information I encountered when travelling to Preston by train - 'Outward travel must not be in the past'. This may have the potential for content of a travel information poster, considering the complexity of the jumble of typefaces to reference.

Eye magazine have an interesting article about the digitisation of Rail Alphabet:

http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/britains-signature

Welcome to Prestune?

The Welcome to Preston signage seemed a good place to begin looking into travel information, past and present.

As Preston is the Administrative Centre of Lancashire, looking at one of the first administrative records of Preston seemed the most fitting start to research past descriptions of Preston - therefore I looked to Domesday Book entry. 

It's clear that Preston has had several different aliases over time: Priest's Tun (etymology), St Petersburg (Marx), Coketown (Dickens) etc. However Preston's entry in the Domesday Book was the most interesting to me, in that the desciption of Preston was 'Prestune'. 

The calligraphic exert from the Domesday Book writes Preston as 'Prestune' in black, with a red ink line across it (similar to a strikethrough). As yet I am unsure what the significance of this red ink line is (presumably a title highlight? - to be looked into). Looking at this description through present eyes, it strangely looked like an exhibited mistake. 

Furthermore the Domesday book describes Preston (Prestune) as being in Amounderness (Agemundrenessa), in the County of Yorkshire. Given the history of Lancashire and Yorkshire, this seemed quite a controversial find.

I then started to think of the Welcome to Lancashire road signs I had seen which then, in turn, made me return to thinking about the Preston By-pass signs. Were they actually by-passing Prestune? I began to use Kinneir and Calvert's motorway signage template to consider this...

Connection(s)

Once returning home and reflecting on my observations so far, it was clear that my main interest was the relationship between public transport information and Preston. This interest was clearly partially influenced by my need to travel to and around the city as an outsider, but mostly originally motivated by the magnitude of the Bus Station and its signage.

The point of most interest to me, regarding the Bus Station signage, was the missing letter parts and the traces of old signage (such as the pasted ‘Cafeteria’ labelling on top of the original ‘Snackbar’ sign).

There were clearly 2, interlinked, aspects that needed to be looked into moving on from these thoughts:

Firstly I wanted to research other lost descriptions within Preston transport information over time, including lost travel destination descriptions and transport methods.

Secondly, thinking that I primarily wished to reinvent these lost places using today’s signage methods, I wanted to research the modernist roots of today’s transport signage. This seemed especially apt given these apparent links between Preston and modernist typography i.e. the use of Helvetica and Swiss design in the Bus Station and the premiere of Britain’s motorway signage in 1958. (Furthermore the Train Station's signage was silently shouting at me each time I passed through there.)

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.