“We’re trying to get design out of the way”

Dezeen and MINI World Tour: in our final movie from Design Indaba in Cape Town, Ben Terrett, head of design at Government Digital Service, explains the design principles behind the new Gov.uk website, which combines all the UK Government’s websites into a single site.

“There were thousands of websites, and we folded them into Gov.uk to make just one,” says Terrett. “The reason to do that really is to ensure that the user doesn’t have to understand government to find something out. They just go to one place and it’s there. They don’t have to know which department has what information.”

"Calvert and Kinneir were doing a very similar thing to what we're doing"

Terrett explains that the core idea behind it was to make it as simple and intuitive as possible for the user. “People only go onto government websites once or twice a year to find out a particular thing,” he says. “So people shouldn’t spend time relearning how to use it. The core of all our work is focussing on user need.”

Terrett sought advice from Margaret Calvert, the graphic designer who, along with Jock Kinneir, designed the UK’s road signs, which have been imitated around the world. Terrett cites her work as one of the iconic pieces of British design he took inspiration from: “There is this huge catalogue or canon of projects that have got this fantastic heritage of this public sector sort of design work,” he says, also citing the London Underground tube map and Joseph Bazalgette’s sewer network. “The more you look at it the more they were trying to do a very similar sort of thing to what we’re doing.”

"Calvert and Kinneir were doing a very similar thing to what we're doing"

The Gov.uk site only uses a single font and has been stripped of any graphical flourishes. “Something we’re trying to do in particular is let design get out of the way and let the user get to what they want,” Terrett says. “You shouldn’t come to the website and go: ‘wow, look at the graphic design’. We haven’t yet achieved that in most web interfaces; they’re still getting in the way [and] you can see the graphic design everywhere. We need to get past that.”

"Calvert and Kinneir were doing a very similar thing to what we're doing"

Terrett believes that, with new technology like Google Glass simplifying or even removing the user interface altogether, websites will eventually catch up. “Google Glass and other things that we don’t know about yet will prompt people to think harder and work harder on that stuff,” he says. “But there’s a long way to go and I think it’s a fascinating challenge, a really exciting challenge.”

The Gov.uk website is shortlisted for this year’s Designs of the Year award, alongside high-profile projects such as Renzo Piano’s The Shard and the Olympic Cauldron by Thomas Heatherwick.

"Calvert and Kinneir were doing a very similar thing to what we're doing"

This movie features a MINI Cooper S Countryman.

The music featured is by South African artist Floyd Lavine, who performed as part of the Design Indaba Music Circuit. You can listen to Lavine’s music on Dezeen Music Project.

See all our Dezeen and Mini World Tour reports from Cape Town.

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out of the way”
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Calvert Brody typeface by Margaret Calvert, Neville Brody and Henrik Kubel

Graphic designer Neville Brody has reworked the Royal College of Art’s house font by Margaret Calvert as part of the London institution’s rebrand.

Calvert Brody typeface by Margaret Calvert and Neville Brody

The RCA asked Neville Brody, who made his name as art director of fashion magazines The Face and Arena and is now dean of communication at the college, to come up with a new identity for its buildings and press material.

Calvert Brody typeface by Margaret Calvert and Neville Brody

Brody and his design office Research Studios worked with Henrik Kubel, a graphic designer who graduated from the RCA in 2000, to produce the Calvert Brody typeface as a “remixed” version of the college’s house font Calvert.

Calvert Brody typeface by Margaret Calvert and Neville Brody

The Calvert font is by Margaret Calvert, the graphic designer best known for creating the UK’s road signage system in the 1960s and a former graphic design course director at the college.

Calvert Brody typeface by Margaret Calvert and Neville Brody

“The idea is like bringing in a producer and doing a remix of music, so I remixed Margaret’s font,” Brody told Dezeen. “I’ve tried to make it both more classical by making it more exaggerated and thick and thin, and at the same time make it more industrial and contemporary, by bringing in the – hopefully interestingly – redrawn pieces plus the stencil.”

Calvert Brody typeface by Margaret Calvert and Neville Brody

Calvert Brody will be used throughout the college’s buildings, either sprayed directly onto walls or laser-cut into metal, and will also appear in print and on screen.

Calvert Brody typeface by Margaret Calvert and Neville Brody

“Hopefully we’ve come up with an interesting typeface that encapsulates a lot of different ideas about the Royal College, which is sort of robust but innovative; it’s slightly non-traditional but at the same time giving a nod to a very traditional source,” Brody added.

Calvert Brody typeface by Margaret Calvert and Neville Brody

The designers were asked to reflect the college’s history as well its current reputation for innovative design and fine art practice, said Octavia Reeve, the RCA’s senior publishing manager, who led the rebrand with the designers.

Calvert Brody typeface by Margaret Calvert and Neville Brody

“The typography is key to this,” she told Dezeen. ”It’s a great message that three generations of RCA graphic designers have collaborated on this essential new element of the RCA’s identity,” she added.

Calvert Brody typeface by Margaret Calvert and Neville Brody

The rest of the RCA’s rebrand, also designed by Research Studios, launches on 1st January 2013 to coincide with the 175th anniversary of the founding of the college.

Calvert Brody typeface by Margaret Calvert and Neville Brody

Dezeen previously published a movie with Neville Brody for the Design Museum’s Super Contemporary exhibition, in which he talks about the people, places and cultures that have defined his life in London.

Writer and broadcaster Andrew Marr recently warned that the Royal College of Art will end up as a “Chinese finishing school” unless the UK government does more to encourage young people to study art and design.

See all our stories about typography »
See all our stories about Neville Brody »
See all our stories about the Royal College of Art »

The post Calvert Brody typeface by Margaret Calvert,
Neville Brody and Henrik Kubel
appeared first on Dezeen.