The life and work of designer Margaret Calvert celebrated in a new monograph from Unit Editions

Aficionados of some of the most iconic and influential pieces of 21st century British graphic design should head over to Volume and support the crowdfunder for Unit Editions’ new monograph Margaret Calvert: Woman at Work, the definitive book on the life and output of Margaret Calvert. Edited by designer and educator Adrian Shaughnessy and designed by Calvert herself with Scott Williams and Henrik Kubel of A2/SW/HK, this 240-page hardback is being crowdfunded now.

Building on the 2020 Design Museum exhibition ‘Woman at Work’ – which unfortunately took place during the pandemic – this is the first ever book to focus on Calvert’s work. Described as a ‘pioneer of design for public service [and] a groundbreaking typographer’, Calvert (born 1936) received this year’s New York Type Directors Club Medal, showing just how venerated she is in graphic design circles.

Few designers can be said to have such an impact on a national character. Her long collaboration with her former Chelsea School of Art tutor Jock Kinneir started when Calvert was just 21 with work on new signage for Gatwick Airport. That led to a commission to create signage for the entire British road network, a typographic, pictographic and organisational feat that occupied the two for many years and is an acknowledged design classic can still be seen in use today.

Woman at Work charts the genesis and evolution of this lifetime of creativity, covering the iconic signage work with later projects for the British Rail and the British Airports Authority. There’s also the 1980 Tyne and Wear Metro identity (the typeface for which was available from Monotype as the Calvert typeface). Unseen archive imagery and preparatory sketches abound and there’s also a focus on Calvert’s role as an educator at the RCA in London and her later work as a solo typographer.

The late Phil Baines once noted in Eye Magazine that ‘Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert’s graphic design amounted to a house style for Britain, characterised by the use of sans serif alphabets with careful and sparing use of colour and a great attention to detail.’ Calvert was awarded the Lifetime Achievement London Design Medal in 2017.

As with all crowdfunded projects, there are multiple editions and rewards, including a slipcase, prints and a special signed ‘Woman at Work’ reflective road sign.

Margaret Calvert: Woman at Work, from £55, Unit Editions, available from Volume, Vol.co, @Vol.co

UnitEditions.com, A2SWHK.co.uk