Brought up on a complicated British diet of two different measurement scales, I have often felt slightly bemused by the overly rigid Kilometre and even more so deluded by the mere utterance of the flummoxing Furlong. Here in the UK, we revel the oppurtunity to clink pints together and anything else would be criminal. We speak of height in feet and inches, yet we measure wood out in Centimeteres. The shop down the road is just under a mile away and if someone said it was a Kilometere away it would seem surprisingly difficult to measure on foot. Yes, our scales of measurement here are all mixed up, but somehow they work. In some weird esoteric way, we just know how to relate the real world into ’1lb bags of sugar’.

But there was terrible confusion a some years ago. Post-war Britain reluctantly wrestled with the now mature European metric system. The Americans too had preserved their version of things – different, but much closer to what the Brits had beloved passed onto them. Britain, as usual, was left muttering and snaffling about the future of things. That is until the 1960′s when a clever group of people called the ‘Metrication Board’ were appointed by the Board of Trade here to help usher in a new metric monetary system. No easy task really, so to help them, they hired Graphic design deities, Ken Garland and associates.

Garland’s team produced a range of superior graphs and diagrams for the board’s annual report to highlight how the metric system would be invaluable to targeted industry sectors. The result was fairly successful and soon enough we shuffled away from the musky notes and stained coins of the tough war years. I can’t help wondering how Ken and his team would sell the concept toady if the government wanted to return to the full imperial system. Heh heh.

These reports seem to have disappeared into obscurity. I’m going to set about getting hold of one from Garlands if it’s possible, so we shall wait and see on that front. However, Scott Hansen over at ISO50 has done a nice piece on the Garland work that is definitely worth a look. Still… After thinking about it all for a while, I’m quite glad that here in the UK we are what you might term as ‘ambidextrously inclined’ when it comes to weights and measurements. I’d rather have a pint and pay for it in pounds and pence anyday.