I came across a blog from 2005 about Marianne Straub, the Zurich-born textile designer. I believe she studied at the Bauhaus, though her Wikipedia entry doesn’t mention it. I remember getting a guest crit from Marianne Straub when I was a student at Camberwell in the mid-1970s. She was a nice woman, rather serious, and she was introduced to us as the London Transport seat designer. Under someone called Frank Pick, London Transport had a reputation for using high quality art and design. Man Ray did a poster:
Paul Nash and, later, Eric Ravilious did posters (these are by Nash):
and Edward Johnston made their famous alphabet.
Marianne Straub told me it was hard to get diagonal stripes to work on vertically hanging textiles, like curtains, unless they were at least as steep as 45 degrees. This inspired me to try much shallower ones. I don’t think she was right, though it was an interesting observation.
A Bad Guide 
The newer seats on local buses here have an interesting and very pleasing abstract pattern (in nice colours too) mixing straight and diagonal stripes which seem to blend into each other and into the background. When there is an empty seat in front of me (if sitting along the side of the bus, facing seats along the other side) I study the pattern to try to figure out how it works, but it is quite complex.
I always liked “No wet, no cold”.
m-l: I study the pattern to try to figure out how it works, but it is quite complex.
It must add up to days, the amount of time I’ve spent doing the same on the London buses and trains.
I’ve never seen that one before, Nij.
This is all a trick to lure the calligraphers out of the jungle, right? Edward Johnston & Frank Pick inter alia. I feel unable to rise to the occasion out here with the electrical storm over the Pyrenees causing the computer (and lights) to flicker dangerously…and the rain…
The type is gorgeous. We must forgive Gill. The Man Ray I hadn’t seen before. Stunning! Great.
Wow. I wonder if the intertubes will stay working and let me send this?
I use Gill Sans a lot. You can’t get the Edward Johnston without paying, I think, (also I don’t want to look as if I’m London Transport).
You’d come through as an underground artist.
The new abstract seat fabrics in Boston (and I suspect most other cities) are actually anti-static, anti-microbial and anti-graffiti. They got a fair bit of press (and chatter in our subway blogs) when they were installed a few years ago.
There is a subculture of subway aficionados focused on seating. And I see that there is indeed a Flickr pool of them.
The company that made the ones for the Orient Express is still going and did the new ones for the Washington Metro.
Hipsters can get sneakers/trainers made from salvage of those classic London Transport fabrics like at the head of this post.
Incredible. Marianne Straub would have been interested in those District Line sneakers.
Thank you.
I see there’s a word for these patterns: moquette. It says:
a thick pile fabric used for carpets and upholstery.
ORIGIN 1930s: from French, perhaps from obsolete Italian mocaiardo ‘mohair.’
The local newspaper is shortly to be redesigned, using a new locally-done typeface. Not everything in the Netherlands is beautifully designed, but a lot of the typefaces are. (Gerard Unger, in particular, FTW. If I had a reason to splash cash on such things, I’d use Swift a *lot*.)
“anti-static, anti-microbial and anti-graffiti”: but edible by goats, I dare say?
Swift is a very nice font with serifs, good for bodies of text. I’m too cheap to pay for fonts, but I like a good one.
I doubt that the goats would eat train seats, but they would be delighted to stand on them.
Moquette is the generic word for carpet in current French.
I wonder if the lovely “No Wet, No Cold” poster linked by Nijma might have been inspired by Renoir
VERY well spotted! It certainly looks like it.
I would be more restrictive and say that moquette is the French word for wall-to-wall carpet (as opposed to tapis for things like oriental carpets).
Ah, thank you. That’ll be why I didn’t know it.
AJP: Credit goes to my wife, who spotted it instantly. I wouldn’t have ….!
bruessel: Of course, I wasn’t thinking hard enough.
Well, she wins a year’s free subscription to A Bad Guide.
bruessel is right, la moquette (a mass noun) is wall-to-wall carpet, made in huge rolls and cut to order. Un tapis (a count noun) is a carpet or rug, which has a definite size. Although the pile in moquette is quite short, it still seems too thick for use in bus seats, let alone for shoes, but perhaps the seat fabric is made by moquette manufacturers. (Those shoes look great).
(…and now, something completely different – sorry for the off-topic –:
GOATS!
now and four thousand years ago, on the same spot
the older ones from the frescoes of Akrotiri)
They didn’t have that wall four-thousand years ago, though. Goats just love to be able to climb on top of things.
Lovely goats and lovely drawing.
Renoir, excellent!
When I was in London in the 80s they were doing reproductions of London Transport posters from the 20’s and 30’s.
Not so sure about the shoes though; they look great, but like so many indie products (like the adbusters blockspot sneakers), they look like they are for appearance only and have no support.
Not the first pair of shoes to be built for appearance rather than speed.