Michael Gamer wrote:
Robin May wrote:
On another note, I noticed a while ago that the P22 tube font
has square commas, full stops, apostrophes etc instead of the
tilted square 'diamond' like ones. Does anyone know why this is?

The P22 Johnston font is a representation of the original Johnston
font for LT. That font *DID* have the punctuation as you've described.

Take a look at St. Pauls station, and above the platform exits you'll
see the square full stop.

Likewise any older line diagrams along the line will represent this as
well.

That's right. Johnston's original font (1916) was curiously inconsistent
on this point (no pun intended). It had diamond points on i, j, ? and !,
but square ones elsewhere (.:, and square-headed commas and quotation
marks. New Johnston is more consistent, with diamond points and
diamond-headed comma shapes used on all the above.

There are other differences between the two fonts, the most visible being
the larger curve to the lower-case L on the original font, and the
unserifed figure 1, the latter still visible on bus route number blinds
which still use the old font (actually the bus font of 1920).
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)