Jock Kinneir

Richard 'Jock' Kinneir (11 February 1917 - 23 August 1994) was a typographer and graphic designer who, with colleague Margaret Calvert, designed many of the road signs used throughout the United Kingdom. Their system has become a model for modern road signage.

Kinneir was born in Hampshire in 1917. He studied engraving at the Chelsea School of Art from 1935 to 1939. After World War II Kinneir was employed as an exhibition designer by the Central Office of Information. He next worked for the Design Research Unit, and then opened his own practice in 1956. He also taught part-time at the Chelsea School of Art.

Kinneir's first big commission was the design of the signage for Gatwick Airport. He chose one of his students at Chelsea, Margaret Calvert, to assist him. When Sir Colin Anderson, the chairman of the P&O Line shipping company read about the Gatwick signage, he chose Kinneir to design a baggage labelling system for P&O. In 1957 Anderson was appointed chairman of the government committee formed to design signs for the new British network, and so he asked Kinneir to design them. The objective was to produce signs that could be read at speed. For the signs, Kinneir and Calvert developed a new typeface, based on Aksidenz Grotesk. This typeface was later named Transport. It was first used for the Preston By-pass in 1958.

T. G. Usborne, the Ministry of Transport official in charge of the Anderson Committee, then formed a new committee under Sir Walter Worboys to review signage on all other British roads. Jock Kinneir was commissioned as the designer. In 1964 he made Margaret Calvert a partner and renamed his practice Kinneir Calvert Associates. They devised a code of carefully chosen shapes and colours that largely complied with the protocol proposed by the 1949 UN World Conference on Road and Motor Transport.

Kinneir and Calvert later completed other design projects. They introduced the Rail Alphabet typeface for British Rail. They also worked for hospitals, the Army and for other airports. Kinneir taught at the Royal College of Art, and was head of the graphic design department for a while.

ee also

*Road signs in the United Kingdom
*Transport (typeface)
*Rail Alphabet
* [http://www.designmuseum.org/media/item/5169/-1/144_1.jpgPhoto]

References

* [http://www.designmuseum.org/design/index.php?id=144|title= Design Museum - Jock Kinneir + Margaret Calvert, URL accessed 25 Mar 2008]
* [http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/diad/article.php?year=1967&title=221&article=d.221.41 Visual Arts Data Service, URL accessed 25 Mar 2008]

Persondata
NAME = Kinneir, Richard "Jock"
ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
SHORT DESCRIPTION = typographer, graphic designer
DATE OF BIRTH = 1917-2-11
PLACE OF BIRTH = Hampshire
DATE OF DEATH = 1994-8-23
PLACE OF DEATH =