“Johnston” is the common name of the legendary sans-serif design developed by Edward Johnston for the London Underground system in 1916. The P22 version, licensed from the London Transport Museum, is true to Johnston’ original design. The included “Underground Extras” feature graphic elements inspired by the design motifs of London Transport maps, tile patterns and seat covers. The more recent Underground Pro expands the typeface. The overall design is kept as intended by Johnston, and remains within his system of proportions. However, additional features are included such as small caps, foreign languages characters.

There is some discussion as to whether the Granby typeface was or was not used on ther earliest vinyl “E” stickers. No one recalls Granby in condensed form, and there clearly are stickers with condensed text. New Johnston was designed in 1979 and took six months to complete, so it could not have been in use much before 1980. These days we can condense a font optically using digital technology but in 1979/1980 that was probably not the case. Granby was certainly used during the period when there was a proliferation of multicoloured stickers, without any apparent pattern, before Transport for London reimposed some semblance of order.

Johnston

Granby