British Road Sign Project

October was a busy month. Including the exhibition of the British Road Sign Project at Humber Street Gallery, Hull. I developed the project in 2015 and worked with The Design Museum to install the signs at the museum during London Design Festival. It was great working with the team at Humber Street Gallery, it’s great to be able to exhibit these signs again. I am planning to tour this exhibition next year.

In 1965 one of the most ambitious and effective information design projects was launched in Britain. The British Road Sign appeared on our streets for the very first time 50 years ago and has occupied an important role in our lives ever since, from instructing us where to go and a safe speed to travel at, to make us aware of any hazards or roadworks. The signs designed by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert standardised the road network, creating many of the signs we see today and produced two new typefaces: Transport and Motorway.

The above publication was produced for Humber Street Gallery.

To mark this 50th-anniversary leading artists and designers have transformed the familiar circle, triangle and square signs. They have developed concepts that evolve from current signs function of instructing people of speed limits and directions to poetically disrupting our every day with designs that make us stop, look and think about design and our environment in a slightly different way; fewer instructions and more pauses for thought.

I would like to thank everyone who has taken part in the project.

A Practice for Everyday Life
Alan Aboud | Aboud Creative
Andy Altmann | Why Not Associates
Ian Anderson | The Designers Republic™
Ron Arad
Kid Acne
Daniel Ayuso | Clase BCN
Rick Banks | Face37
Noma Bar
Jonathan Barnbrook
Nick Bell
Neville Brody | Brody Associates
Sir Peter Blake
Mark Bonner | GBH
Tony Brook | Spin
Florence Blanchard
Anthony Burrill
Cafeteria
Phil Carter | Carter Wong
Cartlidge Levene
Ben Casey | The Chase
Sir Terence Conran
Ilse Crawford | Studio Ilse
Sara De Bondt
Nick Deakin
Mike Dempsey
Marion Deuchars
Ben Drury
Gert Dumbar
Dust
Alan Dye | NB Studio
Daniel Eatock
Vince Frost
Damon Murray & Stephen Sorrell | FUEL
Malcolm Garrett
Kate Gibb
Milton Glaser
Sir Kenneth Grange
Graphic Thought Facility
Fernando Gutiérrez
George Hardie
Hey Studio
Tom Hingston | Hingston Studio
Julian House | Intro
Human Studio
Betty Jackson
Michael Johnson
Ben Kelly
Dylan Kendel | Tomato
Frith Kerr
Erik Kessels | kesselskramer
Ross Kinneir
Alan Kitching
Henrik Kubel | A2-TYPE
Jeremy Leslie | magculture
Dominic Lippa |Pentagram
Lundgren+Lindqvist
Pete McKee
Lewis Moberley
Patrick Murphy 
Morag Myerscough 
Stefan Gandl – Neu Bau
Quentin Newark | Atelier works
Amelia Noble
Non Format
Humphrey Ocean
Craig Oldham
Vaughan Oliver
Julian Opie
PearsonLloyd
Sean Perkins | North
Michael C. Place | Build
Hector Pottie
Damien Poulain
Aubery Powell | Hipgnosis
Practise
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
Rob Ryan
Richard Seymour
Adrian Shaughnessy | Unit Editions
James Somerville | VP Design at Coca-Cola
Erik Spiekermann
Ben Stott | Creative Director at Apple
Studio EMMI
Peter Till
Marina Willer | Pentagram
Maurus Fraser | Winkreative 
Michael Wolff

 

Special thanks and gratitude to Margaret Calvert

More information about the project can be found on www.britishroadsignproject.co.uk