In pictures: Design Research Unit

DRU graphic designer Milner Gray revolutionised British corporate identity. His concept of the total brand makeover was put to fullest effect for the Watney Mann brewery in the 50s and 60s. At least 400 London pubs were destroyed during the blitz – a quarter of them owned by Watneys – and from the mid 50s they were being rebuilt in cheap modern fashion, many of them for new housing estates. Watneys commissioned DRU to provide a coherent look for its premises across south-east England
Photograph: John Maltby, courtesy of Scott Brownrigg

Gray delivered in a manner that was to influence pub signage for the next two decades. He wanted to maintain the idea of a local pub with its own style and yet, as a moderniser, he believed in a degree of standardisation. So he devised five 'architectural style groups' that gave a modern red-brick pub (like the Cock & Lion on Wigmore Street) appropriate lettering distinct from that of a stuccoed-pilaster pub (like The Prince Alfred in Fulham)
Photograph: Council of Industrial Design

The new pubs used what is known as a slab serif font – bold and modern, yet retaining the traditional tails on the letters. This was among the first signage to use pressure-formed plastic, which was soon to become a high-street craze
Photograph: Alexander Gibson, courtesy of Scott Brownrigg

No doubt DRU's most famous logo was for British Rail. In 1965 British Railways, as it was then known, had a makeover and DRU provided its soon-to-be-ubiquitous mark. The logo, evoking two train tracks with arrows pointing in opposite directions, was designed by a young lettering artist on the tube to work. The firm were also responsible for redesigning many of central London's street signs
Photograph: John Maltby, courtesy of Scott Brownrigg

A name change wasn’t in the original brief, but Gray convinced British Railways that 'British Rail' was catchier – a move that prefigured the more interventionist role that design agencies play these days. Gray has been attributed with coining the term 'corporate identity', which superseded the more limited notion of 'house style'
Photograph: John Maltby, courtesy of Scott Brownrigg

In 1946 DRU architect Misha Black drew a fantastical plan for the South Bank for the 1951 Festival of Britain – the end result was significantly smaller, but it suggests the breadth of the Unit's imagination
Photograph: John Maltby, courtesy of Scott Brownrigg

Black's Festival of Britain patch work included the Dome of Discovery – an exhibition celebrating British scientific and creative innovations
Photograph: courtesy of Scott Brownrigg