Margaret Calvert

Who is Margaret Calvert?

Margaret Calvert is a British typographer and graphic designer who, with colleague Jock Kinneir, designed many of the road signs used throughout the United Kingdom, as well as the Transport font used on road signs and the Rail Alphabet font used on the British railway system and an early version of the signs used in airports. The typeface developed by Calvert and Kinneir was further developed into New Transport and used for the single domain GOV.UK website in the United Kingdom.

Born in South Africa, Calvert moved to England in 1950, where she studied at the Chelsea College of Art. Kinneir, her tutor there, asked her to help him design the signs for Gatwick Airport, where they chose the black on yellow scheme for the signs after researching the most effective combination.

In 1957, Kinneir was appointed head of signs for Britain's roads. He then hired Calvert to redesign the road sign system and she came up with simple, easy-to-understand pictograms, including the signs for 'men at work', 'farm animals', and 'schoolchildren nearby', based on pre-existing European road signs.