The Hampstead Garden Suburb house of the man who designed the Tube's look

You probably passed something designed under Frank Pick's direction on your last journey. The roundel, the lettering on the signs, the pattern on the seat: all of it traces back to a manager who, by the account below, had no previous experience of publicity when he started.

His former home in Wildwood Road, Hampstead Garden Suburb, now carries a blue plaque. According to the Ham & High, which carried a report written by American colleagues at USA Today, it reads: "Frank Pick Pioneer of Good Design for London Transport lived here." Pick lived and died in the house in 1941.

From Lincolnshire to the Underground

Pick was born in Lincolnshire in 1878 and joined the North Eastern Railway in 1902 as a trainee manager. He became personal assistant to its general manager, Sir George Gibb. When Gibb became managing director of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London in 1906, he invited Pick to join him.

The timing was not comfortable. The company, known as the Underground Group, had taken over the debt-ridden District Railway and was opening three deep-level Tube lines that by 1907 were in serious financial trouble. Albert Stanley, later Lord Ashfield, took over in a last-ditch bid to save the business. He gave his staff six months to turn things around and, crucially, gave Pick freedom to develop his ideas about publicity.

Posters, maps and a joined-up network

Pick quickly introduced eye-catching posters to encourage people to travel. In 1908 he helped create a coordinated network to increase ticket sales, letting passengers buy tickets across the different operating companies, and introduced colour-coded maps showing the whole system.

He started a Traffic Development and Advertising Department for the Underground Group and became its commercial manager in 1912. Poster design moved away from words towards images promoting the London attractions you could reach by Underground. Designed by leading artists, they showed that theatres, zoos and parks were within reach.

When the Underground Group took over the London General Omnibus Company in 1912, he helped plan and promote bus and Underground services, walking miles to study existing routes and think about where people might travel. The result was new bus routes and links between buses and stations, advertised on posters and popular with commuters.

A typeface, a roundel and some very good stations

Pick wanted the Underground to have a recognisable identity, and began testing a new typeface to replace the different styles used by separate companies. In 1913 the calligrapher Edward Johnston was asked to create an official typeface, first known as Underground Railway Block and later simply as Johnston. An updated version, Johnston100, is still used exclusively by Transport for London.

Pick also asked Johnston to standardise the roundel, which is largely still in use today. He wrote an exact specification of standard proportions, colours and lettering that remains in use.

In the 1920s and 1930s, as the network expanded, Pick selected the architect Charles Holden to design practical, easy-to-use stations. They included a new entrance for Westminster station in 1922, stations on the Morden extension of the Northern line in 1926, and stations for the Piccadilly line extensions between 1931 and 1933. Pick also commissioned the circular ticket hall at Piccadilly Circus, where a memorial honours him.

He commissioned established and new textile designers to create branded moquette, the patterned upholstery still used on seating today.

The later years

By 1928 Pick was managing director of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London. As the Second World War approached, he helped organise London Transport's role in the mass evacuation of civilians. He quit London Transport in 1940 after a disagreement with Lord Ashfield over government involvement in its finances.

A brief and unhappy spell followed as director general of the Ministry of Information, where he clashed with prime minister Winston Churchill after refusing to distribute false propaganda in Germany. Pick died suddenly at his Hampstead home shortly after retiring in 1941.

Know before you go

• The plaque is on a house in Wildwood Road, Hampstead Garden Suburb. It is a private home, so look from the street.
• The circular ticket hall and memorial to Pick are at Piccadilly Circus station.

Sources: Ham & High, Islington Gazette