London Transport - Standard Signs Manual : internally illuminated joint totem mast - revised to 1963

            London Transport, owners of one of the world's most noted corporate identities, logo and typeface, first codified the 'family' of signs in a Standard Signs Manual in 1938 after the Carr-Edwards Report into signs on both the road and rail divisions of the organisation. Over time the "Standard Signs Manual" was updated to reflect changes to various aspects of signs and this included the simplification of the layout of the roundel.

Originally codified by Edward Johnston for the Underground Group in 1919 Johnston included lining out to the roundel's visual components and the "ticks" to the upper and lower edge of the N to N in the word Underground. This was modified in 1933 when London Transport was created and, after a short hiatus, the roundel was reinstated as the logotype for the new organisation. Changes took place, notably in 1948 upon nationalisation, and during the 1950s aspects of signs became graphically 'simpler' or plainer rather in line with contemporary trends in graphic design.

By 1957, and as here revised in 1963, the London Transport components of such signs still retained the larger U and D but the lettering is now completely unadorned. The British Railways regional versions of the 'totem', the symbol that had been adopted by the nationalised concern in 1948 and using Gill Sans lettering, carried the regional colour and so, seen here, is the Southern Region's green. Combined signs such as this would have been found on certain District line stations such as Gunnersbury and similar signs, such as on the eastern side of the District, would have carried the joint totem signs on Eastern Region blue.

As can be seen this to scale drawing includes the all important dimensions so as to keep the various 'elements' of the design to the correct proportions. I notice that someone, in pencil, has added a couple of 'widths' as well as the verticals. The drawing is also issued by the Department of the Chief Signals Engineer - this being the Department within LT that was for decades responsible for many aspects of signs.

Within LU we knew these as 'javelin' roundels due to the 11ft 3.25in central mast (with the finishing finial!) and a few years ago when redesigning the modern versions we successfully reintroduced a version with a vertical post feature. This page was photographed when I worked at LU and these documents were very useful when looking to replicate historic signs on stations.

Taken in: UK / England / Ealing / South Acton (show map)

Taken on: February 12, 2016

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London Transport

London Underground

British Railways

British Railways totem

Southern Region

totem sign

illuminated sign

Underground roundel

1963

Standard Signs Manual

sign

corporate identity

logo

lettering

typeface

Johnston

Gill Sans

joint station sign

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Sets appears in: • Lettering • London Transport

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