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Old October 19th 10, 09:30 PM posted to uk.transport.london
Tom Anderson Tom Anderson is offline
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First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Oct 2003
Posts: 3,188
Default [OTish] Hexagons in the retroreflective coating on road signs

Evening all,

Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert designed modern road signage. Okay,
that's a wild and ahistorical oversimplification, but this is my thread,
and what i say goes.

I went to see a film this evening [1], and the director, who took
questions afterwards, mentioned in passing that as well as the typeface,
Calvert and Kinneir had invented the hexagonal pattern that you can see,
faintly, in the retroreflective coating. Is this true, or was either he
talking rubbish, or i misunderstanding?

This fascinating and joyously obscure article on the history of
retroreflective signs doesn't mention the connection, and indeed indicates
that the hexagonal pattern arrived on the scene in 1971, long after
Kinneir and Calvert and done their work:

http://www.rema.org.uk/pdf/history-r...-materials.pdf

tom

[1] http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff/node/493 - reasonably good if you like that
sort of thing; it's certainly got me hopping mad about the Enclosures.

--
VENN DIAGRAM THAT LOOK LIKE TWO BIG CIRCLES EQUAL BAD PUBLIC POLICY.