#margaretcalvert

Margaret Calvert is known as "the mother of modern-day information design". She is known for designing the Transport font used on road signs and the Rail Alphabet font used on the British railway system. Her work is very minimalistic, normally using no more than three different colours. I find that this helps the legibility of her signage, as it's important that her work is universally legible and they can be clearly depicted. Although we don't tend to take much notice of the signage we see on a day to day basis Calvert's designs are very bold and have a unique style.

Calvert and Kinnier's Rail Alphabet font is based on the font 'Helvetica'. This font is sans-serif and is suitable for it's purpose as it is bold, clear and easy to read. Calvert and Kinneir's typeface on the designs contains a mix of upper and lower-case letters, helping people recognise words faster than if they were written in only capital letters. There are three basic design shapes of road signs, each with different shapes: circles, rectangles and triangles. The circle signs are used for signs that give orders, the rectangles are for signs that give information and the triangles are used for signs that warn you about something. This simple, consistent language helps the public easily comprehend the information they are viewing, thus making their purpose fulfilled. However, there are also some other shapes used, such as the hexagon and the upside down triangle.