“Not only did the inconsistency in typefaces everywhere look a bit haphazard, but it also served as a permanent and unwelcome reminder of the Underground’s origins as a number of smaller rivals,” Bull writes. “When the typefaces were bad, Pick also noted, they genuinely adversely affected passenger’s journeys and that was bad for both commuter and company.”
.. Type experts at the time didn’t think much of Sans Serif, although examples can be traced back to ancient Greece and Rome. It took Johnston’s painstaking work to thrust it into the forefront of contemporary design sensibilities, and eventually helped define what we now consider “modern.