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Margaret Calvert OBE RDI (b. 1936) is a British graphic designer and typographer best known for co-designing the UK’s road signage system in the 1960s with Jock Kinneir, as well as creating the Transport, Rail Alphabet, and Calvert typefaces. Her work has shaped public design across Britain, with the Transport typeface later adapted into New Transport for the GOV.UK website. She taught at the Royal College of Art for nearly 40 years, leading the graphics department from 1987 to 1991, and was honoured with awards including the D&AD President’s Award (2015) and an OBE (2016) for services to typography and road safety. A major retrospective, Margaret Calvert: Woman at Work, was held at the Design Museum from 2020 to 2021.

Margaret Calvert’s Roadworks (Woman at Work) reimagines one of her most iconic contributions to British visual culture—the ‘Men at Work’ road sign—by subtly transforming the figure with a bob haircut and dress. Originally created for the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition and later featured in her 2023 solo show Roadworks at Liminal Gallery, this intervention playfully challenges assumptions embedded in everyday signage. With characteristic clarity and wit, Calvert demonstrates how the simplest graphic adjustments can radically shift meaning, reaffirming the enduring power of design to question, reframe, and provoke.