The P22 Underground Pro font family started in 1997 as the first and only officially licensed revival of Edward Johnston’s London Underground railway lettering. The original design by Richard Kegler sought to be as true to the original as possible. In 2007 P22 revised and expanded the fonts into a massive character set with additional weights, language support, and stylistic alternates.
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 other existing italic interpretation of Johnston’s Underground type was executed by the inimitable Dave Farey and Richard Dawson at Housestyle Graphics. We asked Dave Farey to imagine an Underground italic that would pair well with the P22 Underground, done as if Edward Johnston himself might approach the design challenge.
This new italic version was then expanded for all six of the existing P22 Underground weights and characters sets by James Todd of JTD Type. Final mastering of the P22 Underground Pro roman and italic with a streamlined yet still expansive language coverage by P22 partner Patrick Griffin of Canada Type. These refinements remain true to the original Johnston design while employing contemporary typographic finesse to create six weights with optional alternates to increase legibility. The new P22 Underground Pro family is now a rock-solid and very versatile humanist sans serif font family that should be a cornerstone of any designer’s typographic toolkit. After five years in development, the new P22 Underground Pro is the most iconic and useful font family ever presented by P22 Type Foundry.
