The Art of the Commute: Milwaukee's Hand-Designed Transit Passes

Originally published February 9, 2022, by Stephen Coles

Milwaukee doesn't just claim to have pioneered the concept of the weekly transit pass; for several decades, they also produced some of the most aesthetically pleasing versions of them in existence.

🕰️ A Brief History of the Pass

The journey began on August 18, 1919, when the Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light Company (TMER&L) initiated an experimental weekly pass for its streetcar network. The trial was an immediate hit, leading to full-scale implementation by 1921.

While early designs were artistic utilitarian and boring, a shift occurred in the 1930s. By moving production in-house, the company transformed these slips of paper into vibrant communication tools featuring:

• Public service announcements.
• Local event updates.
• Illustrations depicting the city's civic heritage.

🎨 The Golden Era of Design (1937–1972)

For enthusiasts of typography and letterforms, the period between 1937 and 1972 represents a peak of visual cohesion. The design language was remarkably consistent:

🏢 Institutional Evolution

The commitment to hand-crafted art boards for printing plates was an anomaly for an American municipality, persisting through various corporate and governmental shifts.

"L.Co.) and, after 1939, The Milwaukee Electric Railway Transport Co. T.Co.) had its own print shop, where they would design and print these passes," explains John Giove, President and CEO of the Milwaukee Transit Archives Museum. "This continued after 1975 when the Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) took over from the privately-run Transport Company."

📦 Preservation and the Unknown

The Letterform Archive now houses approximately 300 tickets spanning 1932 to 1969, aided significantly by a contribution from type designer Tobias Frere-Jones. While the Milwaukee Transit Archives Museum possesses logs and proofs from the 1980s and '90s (created by photoengraver Klaus Birkhain), the creators of the 1930s–60s era remain anonymous.

Current Archive Goals:

• Identify the original designers of the 1930s–60s passes.
• Gather insights from local transit collectors.
• Document the transition from art board to digital.

📱 Modern Implications

Today, the act of commuting is often sterile—a simple tap of a plastic card or a smartphone. However, as cities struggle to recover ridership lost during the pandemic, there is a case to be made for returning "visual joy" to the experience.

We can think of the relationship between design and ridership as a conceptual formula: $\text{Ridership} \propto (\text{Efficiency} + \text{Visual Appeal})$

Whether it is a physical ticket or a digital screen, the Milwaukee passes prove that dynamism can be brought to the most mundane daily routines.

{
  "inspiration": "Milwaukee Transit Passes",
  "application": [
    "Lettering",
    "Numbering",
    "Color Theory",
    "Serial Product Design"
  ],
  "goal": "Bring dynamism to the day-to-day"
}

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Support the Archive: To help preserve these examples of everyday design, consider becoming a member of the Letterform Archive.