Railroad Forums 

Discussion relating to the past and present operations of the NYC Subway, PATH, and Staten Island Railway (SIRT).

Moderator: GirlOnTheTrain

 #609223  by umtrr-author
 
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/ ... subway/?hp

"It was the letter J that opened the door for Helvetica into the subways."

A discussion of the various typefaces and sign styles used by the NYC Subway over the years, starting with mosaic signs and ending with digital signs.
 #609423  by 4266
 
I saw that article this morning. How great is it when transit-fans and graphic design connessieurs collide?!! New Yorkers are truly lucky to have such a rich aesthetic heritage on their transit system. I was just on the MBTA and it seems to be nothing but Helvetica signage. Consistent but boring...
 #618482  by Otto Vondrak
 
Paul Shaw is great. This is the best article, really. I couldn't have explained it better myself. And I study typefaces for a living.

http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/the-mos ... ity-subway

-otto-
 #619316  by umtrr-author
 
Wow, that's a great piece, Otto. I suppose I can guess how you found it...

I don't study typefaces for a living, but I can spot when one looks "out of place" for a time period. Sans serif dimensional data on old time cars drives me nuts, for example.

I could go way off topic here, but... I... won't... no, I won't... must... resist...

OK, I can't resist this bit of trivia: the Irwin's Journal website masthead and those of the subsidiary pages -- UMTRR, A1G, etc. all use "Fantasy" which is, ahem, a borrowing of "Tiffany." It was the same font that was chosen for my high school newspaper's column -- also called "Irwin's Journal"-- by the typesetter we had for the paper. (Remember those?) I don't think you'll ever see it being used in the NYC Transit System, or any other one for that matter.

Anyway, thanks for sharing...
 #621800  by jonnhrr
 
4266 wrote:I saw that article this morning. How great is it when transit-fans and graphic design connessieurs collide?!! New Yorkers are truly lucky to have such a rich aesthetic heritage on their transit system. I was just on the MBTA and it seems to be nothing but Helvetica signage. Consistent but boring...
Yeah we used to have nice mosaic station names but most of those have been obliterated in the modernizations :( There is still one left at Central on the Red Line, there may be others.

Last time I was in NYC, I went into one of the entrances at Times Sq and there was a nice mosaic sign embedded in the plaster above the stairwell. :-)

Jon
 #622541  by umtrr-author
 
The film "Helvetica" is apparently being shown on PBS stations now, as part of the "Indpendent Lens" series. It was late when I caught a middle portion of the film, so I can't state definitively whether this is truly "on topic"-- but it did seem to be interesting.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/helvetica/

(for WXXI viewers, it's on Sunday 1/11 at 1PM)