The roundel

A red disc, a blue bar and some very good letters

How the Underground got one of the world’s best-known signs.

How this site works. Every fact is in our own words and linked to its source, beside it. Where good sources disagree, we show each version in a “Sources differ” box.

1908: a red disc

The roundel first appeared on station platforms in 1908, as a solid red disc with a blue bar across it, used as a station name board. LT Museum, roundel

It made the station’s name stand out from the advertisements around it. LT Museum, roundel

Frank Pick and Edward Johnston

In 1915 the Underground’s publicity manager, Frank Pick, asked the calligrapher Edward Johnston to design a typeface for the company. LT Museum, roundel

Pick’s aim was to raise fare income by making the Underground better publicised, its stations easier to spot and the system easier to use. LT Museum, Johnston

Edward Johnston was born to Scottish parents in Uruguay, and his family moved to England when he was three. LT Museum, Johnston

In 1906 he published the influential book Writing & Illuminating & Lettering. LT Museum, Johnston

Johnston sent Pick the first examples of his capital block letters in February 1916. LT Museum, Johnston

The Johnston typeface is a sans serif: its letters have no small strokes, or serifs, at their ends. LT Museum, Johnston

The bullseye

By 1917 the roundel had been redrawn to suit the new lettering: the solid disc became a ring, and it was registered as a trademark. LT Museum, roundel

Johnston called it the ‘bullseye’. LT Museum, roundel

A red ring with a blue bar reading Underground, on a post outside a stone building — A roundel at the High Holborn exit of Holborn station, March 2024.Picture: The wub, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped and resized)

Stations to match

From 1924 Pick asked the architect Charles Holden to design new stations, and Holden built the roundel into them, on masts outside and in stained-glass windows. LT Museum, roundel

A round brick station building with tall windows and a flat roof, under a blue sky — Arnos Grove station, designed by Charles Holden and opened in 1932; photographed in 2012.Picture: Images George Rex, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped and resized)

Still in use

In 1979 Eiichi Kono, a young Japanese designer, revised Johnston’s letters and added bold and italic versions. LT Museum, Johnston

Monotype’s update, Johnston100, has been rolled out by TfL since 2016. LT Museum, Johnston

Transport for London, created on 3 July 2000, uses a family of roundels in different colours for its different services. LT Museum, roundel

The roundel is now one of the most recognised and copied logos in the world. LT Museum, roundel

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