From October 6 to 21, the “Edward Johnston” exhibition took place at the ORT Centro Exhibition Space, co-organized by the Montevideo Typographic Society and ORT University, with support from the University of Sunderland, England, the Edward Johnston Foundation, and the Ditchling Museum. Johnston was born in 1872 in San José, Uruguay. He is a leading figure in the modern history of typography and a promoter of the 20th-century European calligraphy renaissance.
This exhibition presents various aspects of his life and work related to typography, both within and outside academic circles. His most renowned work is the design of the typeface for the London Underground system. The use of the Johnston Underground typeface has endured to this day and has served as a benchmark for much of the typographic design that followed its creation (1916). It is one of the first widely used sans-serif typefaces, having become a seminal typeface; its influences—direct or indirect—can be found in all the major sans-serif typefaces of the 20th century: Futura, Helvetica, and Gill, among others.