IOW, does anyone happen to know the name of, and a source for, the distinctive sans-serif typeface used on public signage (such as street signs and railway notices) in the UK?
Just wondering whether this exists as a True Type font.
TIA,
WAG, there’s a calligraphy style called Foundation that strikes me as distinctively British – if you remember the TV show The Prisoner this was used as the font for the on-screen lettering. It usually has serifs, but maybe it’s been modified for sign use?
The typeface used in The Prisoner is, according to ‘The Official Prisoner Companion’, Albrecht (also sometimes known as Albertus). It was designed in Germany in the 1930s.
Lucida sans bold is very similar, but I dont know if this is the actual font used.
Thanks Arken – I stand corrected. Foundation is very similar, though, and certainly “British”: It was designed by the Englishman Edward Johnston, the father of modern calligraphy. I couldn’t find a website that shows Foundation in its modern form, alas. Do you have any links to Albrecht?
Well, Microsoft 97’s version of Albertus (2 actually: Albertus W1 and Albertus Xb W)) didn’t really look much like those distinctive ‘Prisoner Fonts’ [which actually reminded me more of a typeface called ‘Gill-Sans’].
Also, didn’t British Rail [70s-mid 90s period]simply use a Helvetica/Arial kind of typeface?
I don’t know about Microsoft’s ‘Albertus’…
Here is Adobe’s version of ‘Albertus’
Here is a page with the text logo from ‘The Prisoner’
http://www.the-prisoner-6.freeserve.co.uk/
You will notice that the two are extremely similar, the main difference being the open lower-case E which was, according to the Official Prisoner Companion (again) a change made for the show itself to give the type a unique look.
I think the font you’re looking for is “New Johnston”. It is the font that is used on London Underground signs (the circle with a bar through it with the name of the station) The orginal fort was called “Johnston” after it’s creator Edward Johnston who first designed it in 1916. It was revised a few years back, thus the “New”. New Johnston is copyrighted, I’m not sure if it can be purchased or not. The original Johnston (also known as “London Underground”) can be bought online here. Or a free, look-a-like font, “London Tube”, can be found at http://www.fontfreak.com/fonts/londontube.zip
You are right about Adobe, of course, and yet Microsoft’s Albertus looks nothing like it [more like a thin Arial typeface]. I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised about that [maybe W1 stands for ‘Windows’]
Bless you MinkMan; been looking for that thing, on and off, for months.
Once more, the Teeming Millyuns come through.
Cheers,
Quoth SirRay:
Makes me wonder if that really IS Times New Roman.
I’ve gotten the impression that Gill Sans comes pretty close to approximating the New Johnston font.