I'm a bit late with this as I believe the changes were introduced by TfL
last October, but I don't think anyone else has mentioned it on utl, so
for anyone interested in LU/TfL typography . . .

TfL have made at least two changes to the New Johnston typeface that is
their corporate standard.

The figure "1" has lost the sloping stroke at the top. (Some might call
it a serif, but it's really part of the basic shape of a printed "1" in
nearly all sanserif typefaces.) They have reverted to a single vertical
stroke, with a sloping top edge to it, very similar to the original
Johnston shape.

The figure "4" has also changed, with the top and left hand points of
the triangle becoming sharp points instead of being cut off in the
previous design. Again this takes the "4" back towards the original
Johnston design which also had sharp points, though the horizontal bar
doesn't project as far to the right in New New Johnston as it did in old
Johnston.

I am amazed that these changes have been made to an established typeface
which has so much exposure to the general public. Presumably the new
designs will only appear on new signs and publications, so for the
forseeable future the superseded designs will still be on show all over
the network. I'm also surprised that the design standards documents on
the TfL website don't make any reference to the changes.

Can anyone throw any light on why these changes were made?

Samples of the revised fonts are in the various design standards
documents on the TfL site, for example, the Line Diagram Standard at
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/corporate/...rd-issue03.pdf
This shows the new New Johnston Medium font on page 4. The old "1" and
"4" can still be seen on page 18, where the example of the Heathrow
Piccadilly Line layout has not been revised.

--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)

"Richard J." wrote in
m:

I am amazed that these changes have been made to an established
typeface which has so much exposure to the general public. Presumably
the new designs will only appear on new signs and publications, so for
the forseeable future the superseded designs will still be on show all
over the network. I'm also surprised that the design standards
documents on the TfL website don't make any reference to the changes.

Can anyone throw any light on why these changes were made?

Good question. I noticed a while ago (probably over a year ago now) that
the Old Johnstone-style "1" was used on bus destination blinds - I spotted
it on the 111.

Richard J. wrote on Sat, 2 May 2009:

I am amazed that these changes have been made to an established
typeface which has so much exposure to the general public. Presumably
the new designs will only appear on new signs and publications, so for
the forseeable future the superseded designs will still be on show all
over the network.

I know little of these things, but it looks to me as if they may, for
reasons unknown, have switched to 'ITC Johnston':
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnston_(typeface).
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/itc/joh...m/charmap.html
--
lemming

Long after the new "1" in New Johnston had become widespread in bus
blinds and elsewhere, route "11" Routemaster blinds retained the
original figure "1", i.e. without the serif, which was most noticeable
when the buses were route-branded with "11" in New Johnston on each
side of the blind box, but the blind itself continued to contain the
old lettering.

I always thought that the serif on the "1" in New Johnston was an
aberration on what is meant to be a sans serif font, and am delighted
to see the return of the old elegant "1", and the more logical and
attractive "4" as well.

Marc.

On May 2, 12:42�pm, Lemuel wrote:
Richard J. wrote on Sat, 2 May 2009:



I am amazed that these changes have been made to an established
typeface which has so much exposure to the general public. �Presumably
the new designs will only appear on new signs and publications, so for
the forseeable future the superseded designs will still be on show all
over the network.

I know little of these things, but it looks to me as if they may, for
reasons unknown, have switched to 'ITC Johnston':http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnsto...m/charmap.html
--
lemming

Lemming, I'm not sure that you are right, since the L.T. document
referred to above has, for example, full-stops etc. as diamond-shaped
rather than squares as shown on the ITC Johnston page you quote.

Marc.

I've just visited the Bus sign section of the T.F.L. website and,
interestingly, the old form of "1", i.e with the serif, is retained
there!

Marc.

wrote on 02 May 2009 14:13:39 ...
I've just visited the Bus sign section of the T.F.L. website and,
interestingly, the old form of "1", i.e with the serif, is retained
there!

Was that the "Bus station signage and display guidelines"? I noticed
that only the cover says "Issue 2". All other pages say "Bus station
signs standard. Issue 1. September 2007". Looks like a document
updating glitch. The document "London Buses Basic elements standard"
shows the revised fonts.
--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)

wrote on 02 May 2009 13:27:51 ...
Long after the new "1" in New Johnston had become widespread in bus
blinds and elsewhere, route "11" Routemaster blinds retained the
original figure "1", i.e. without the serif, which was most noticeable
when the buses were route-branded with "11" in New Johnston on each
side of the blind box, but the blind itself continued to contain the
old lettering.

The bus blinds have always been a law unto themselves. Although
Johnston created a condensed form (upper-case only) of his Underground
typeface for use on bus blinds, it was not consistently adopted, and the
typeface was redesigned in the 1960s when lower case started to be used
for intermediate destinations. As far as I know, the blinds have never
been converted to New Johnston, certainly not the route numbers.

I always thought that the serif on the "1" in New Johnston was an
aberration on what is meant to be a sans serif font, and am delighted
to see the return of the old elegant "1", and the more logical and
attractive "4" as well.

As I said in my original post, I don't regard it as merely a serif. It
nearly always slopes down to the left, reflecting the way in which the
figure 1 is written by millions of people. Look at the sanserif fonts
on your PC and see how many have the extra stroke on the 1. I suspect
it will be all except for Johnston (if you have the P22 or ITC versions)
and Gill Sans which was influenced by Johnston. Oh, and UKNumberPlate
too! All the rest - Arial, Tahoma, Verdana etc - and many others that
you see every day but may not have on your PC - Helvetica, Univers,
Frutiger, Bliss, Transport - all have the second stroke on the "1".

I'm not disagreeing with you on the attractiveness front, though.

--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)

On Sat, 2 May 2009, Richard J. wrote:

wrote on 02 May 2009 13:27:51 ...

I always thought that the serif on the "1" in New Johnston was an
aberration on what is meant to be a sans serif font, and am delighted
to see the return of the old elegant "1", and the more logical and
attractive "4" as well.

As I said in my original post, I don't regard it as merely a serif. It nearly
always slopes down to the left, reflecting the way in which the figure 1 is
written by millions of people.

I'm with Richard on this one: i don't consider that little downtick a
serif any more than the crossbar on the t is. Furthermore, i like the tick
- i think the tickless 1 lacks clarity and gravitas.

I thought i'd have a look to see if there was an official term for the
tick on the 1, but couldn't find anything in my one book on typography and
a bit of googling.

But i did find this fascinating post about typesetting a huge prime
number:

http://www.typography.com/ask/showBlog.php?blogID=183

And this article about, well, it's in the title:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_tele...misconceptions

tom

--
If you're going to print crazy, ridiculous things, you might as well
make them extra crazy. -- Mark Rein

On Sat, 2 May 2009, wrote:

On May 2, 12:42???pm, Lemuel wrote:
Richard J. wrote on Sat, 2 May 2009:

I am amazed that these changes have been made to an established
typeface which has so much exposure to the general public. ???Presumably
the new designs will only appear on new signs and publications, so for
the forseeable future the superseded designs will still be on show all
over the network.

I know little of these things, but it looks to me as if they may, for
reasons unknown, have switched to 'ITC Johnston':
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnston_(typeface)
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/itc/joh...m/charmap.html

Lemming, I'm not sure that you are right, since the L.T. document
referred to above has, for example, full-stops etc. as diamond-shaped
rather than squares as shown on the ITC Johnston page you quote.

The quote marks are particularly different.

Also, ITC Johnston has a capital E, unlike the font in the TfL document!

tom

--
If you're going to print crazy, ridiculous things, you might as well
make them extra crazy. -- Mark Rein