Road Signage Systems

It became mandatory for the local authorities to provide road warning signs in 1903 when the Motor Car Act came into practice. Despite it being compulsory, the waymarkings, warning signs and destination signs were created by many different parties including the Ministry of Transport, local councils and motoring and cycling organisations. This resulted in the signs all being completely different and featuring different sizes, shapes and typefaces which meant that it was extremely difficult to understand the signs when stationary let alone when driving past them. Below are two examples of the complexity of road signage before it was redesigned in the 1960's.

It came to light that especially on the motorway, the busy cluttered road signage wasn't suitable and it needed to be legible at much higher speeds. Jock Kinnier was commissioned to design the signage for motorways and then along with Margaret Calvert was then asked to apply the same signage to the whole road network.

The new road signage which is known as the standard for today features pictograms which most were adapted or at least inspired from pictograms on signs in Europe. The typeface is loosely based on a German font from the 20th century called Aksidenz Grotesk, it is modern and easy to read, hence why it was used and is still being used to this day. There was experimentation with having the whole destination name in capitals but it was harder to read at a glance or when going fast hence why the final outcome was a mixture of upper and lower case. Below are some examples of modern road signage systems.

                                              

                             

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/10353447/The-history-of-British-road-signs.html

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/shortcuts/2015/sep/18/way-to-go-the-woman-who-invented-britains-road-signs