Underground

The P22 Underground fonts started in 1997 as the first and only officially licensed revival of Edward Johnston’s London Underground railway lettering. Drawn by Richard Kegler, this design sought to be as true to the original as possible. In 2007, Paul D. Hunt revised and expanded the fonts into a massive character set with several additional weights, expansive language support, and slight stylistic revisions. Endeavoring to make this font family a more versatile and useful tool for a designer, P22 sought to add true italics to this stalwart type design. The only existing italic interpretation of Johnston’s Underground type was the ITC Johnston executed by the inimitable Dave Farey and Richard Dawson (Housestyle Graphics), so we decided to approach Dave Farey to imagine a different approach to the Underground Italic — one that would pair well with the P22 Underground, but imagined as if Edward Johnston himself might approach the design challenge, informed by the many examples of his work as a master calligrapher and noted lettering instructor. This new italic version delivered to P22 by Housestyle Graphics was then expanded for all of the existing P22 Underground weights and characters sets by James Todd (JTD Type). Final mastering of the P22 Underground Pro Roman and Italic with a streamlined yet still expansive language coverage (Central European, Greek, and Cyrillic all in one font!) by P22 partner Patrick Griffin (Canada Type) makes the new P22 Underground Pro family a rock-solid and very versatile humanist sans serif font family that should be a cornerstone of any designer’s typographic toolkit. These refinements remain true to the original Johnston design while employing contemporary typographic finesse to create six weights with optional alternates to increase legibility. After five years in development, the new P22 Underground Pro is the most iconic and useful font family ever presented by P22 Type Foundry.