Little did I know when innocently watching nerds like Brick Heck and Sheldon Cooper pontificate about fonts that I would soon be blogging about them.
There is no doubt that the text is 50% of a posters charm and if its not there (see earlier blog) value is significantly reduced.
Take my latest eBay listing. The one with the text pops out
According to Oliver Greens excellent book Underground Art modern fontage (if that’s a word) was inspired by early London Transport posters and a certain Edward Johnston.
Johnston had made a detailed study of early letter forms and decided that symetry was the key to a 20th Century font design. The capital O was a circle , the capital M a square , the other 24 along the same lines and the Johnston typeface was born . see examples with and without.
Interesting to note that Google have just changed their logo and guess what : its back to the simple Johnston style typeface