A great piece (via Kottke) all about the creation of typography for the London Underground.

The typeface that had helped inspire Eiichi’s choice was, of course, Johnston Sans – a typeface created by Edward Johnston and unique to the London Underground. It was this that had helped motivate him into becoming a typographer and this that, upon graduation, had helped ensure that when Colin Banks (one of his course assessors and the “Banks” part of Banks & Miles) offered him a job working on a new typeface, he had leapt at the chance.

It was also this typeface, Colin Banks finally told him upon his arrival at Banks & Miles, that Eiichi would be working on.

He had been hired to redesign Johnston Sans.

“That morning,” says Eiichi, “was a bit of a shock.”

It gets better from there.  LINK.