Signs of the times

Mr Osborne will be giving his Comprehensive Spending Review today. For predictions on what massive cuts might mean for today’s UK design industry you might have to go elsewhere. Instead, we take a look back to a design success story born in the last Age of Austerity. Coming out of rationing, while Britain began rebuilding after the war, the Design Research Unit worked across architecture, graphic and product design.

They created sharp modern fonts for Watney’s pubs – the kind of now-retro signage people dedicate blogs to cataloguing – as well as the British Rail logo and many London street signs.

For more go to this Guardian feature and photo gallery. And let’s hope a great new generation of lean, practical and ambitious designers are waiting to rise above the current economic turbulence. Via the medium of some rocking fonts.