Almost everyone is familiar with Margaret Calvert’s work and see it on a daily basis although very few people realise this. Margaret Calvert is one of the designers responsible for all our road signs. When the first motorways opened in the 1960s Jock Kinnier was tasked with redesigning and standardising roadsigns which he did along with his colleague Margaret Calvert, her most famous signs are arguably the children crossing sign, the men at work sign, and the cattle sign. She is also responsible for the transport font used on all road signs. Over the last 50 years she has continued to work as a designer, often using her road signs to create art pieces.
For our first brief in the module Pictue Symbol Icon I have decided to design a poster for an exhibition of Margaret Calvert’s work. I think this could be really interesting because well designed roadsigns, like Kinnier and Calvert’s, get their message across without being noticed, so focusing on them is something very few people do – once they’ve passed their theory test.
I started by analysing some of the roadsigns to establish the common themes that run through them all, one of the most important features of the roadsigns is the colour scheme. The only colours used, besides black and white are red, yellow, green, and blue. Additionally, she only uses one or two colours (besides black and white) on any sign and almost none of the writing is black. The font she designed, is a slab serif font and is very clear and easy to read.
For my poster design I would try to stick to the design style used on the signs, limited colour range, and simple clear fonts. I will also include some of the most recognisable features from the signs, possibly the arrows and roundabouts or some of the most famous characters, like Patience the cow, the schoolchildren, or the workman.
My next step will be to digitalise my initial design ideas on adobe illustrator and rework them so that they are more visually pleasing. I also need to decide on the location of the exhibition, I’m currently thinking about doing some kind of outdoor exhibition which visitors would drive through, however I’m not sure at the moment and need to do more research because that has the potential to be very dangerous.
Lois Faye Design 
