Margaret Calvert is a typographer and graphic designer who designed many of the road signs used throughout Great Britain, as well as the Transport font used on road signs and the Rail Alphabet font used on the British railway system and an early version of the signs used in airports. Born in South Africa in 1936, Calvert moved to England in 1950, she studied at the Chelsea College of Art. She chose the black on yellow scheme for the signs after researching the most effective combination.
In 1957, Calvert was hired by, John Kinneir, the head of signs for Britain, to redesign the road sign system and she came up with simple, easy-to-understand pictograms, especially the signs for “men at work” (a man digging), and “schoolchildren nearby” (a girl leading a boy by the hand, whom she later revealed to be herself), based on pre-existing European road signs.
In addition to her road 
signs, she has designed commercial fonts for Monotype, including the eponymous Calvert font, which she created for use on the Tyne and Wear Metro system. She was awarded an honorary degree by the University of the Arts London in 2004.
Excellent post Tara! You have a nice balance of biographical and art information on her. Her development of pictograms was an important and notable moment in graphic design history.
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