Before the Tap: Milwaukee's Hand-Lettered Transit Passes, 1937–1992

Milwaukee claims to have invented the weekly transit pass, launching an experiment in 1919 that became permanent by 1921. What makes the passes notable to design historians is what happened next: starting in the 1930s, the Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light Company pulled production into its own print shop and turned a utilitarian ticket into a small canvas—hand-drawn week numbers, custom lettering for date ranges, banners, frames, and rotating civic content like event listings and public-service messages. The Letterform Archive now holds roughly 300 examples from 1932 to 1969, seeded partly by a donation from type designer Tobias Frere-Jones.

The striking detail is how long the hand process survived. Artists produced original artwork on art board for printing plates until 1992, when the agency adopted the Mac and desktop publishing. That tradition outlasted multiple ownership changes—from a private utility to the Milwaukee County Transit System in 1975—which is unusual for a U.S. municipal service. Much of the early history is undocumented, including who actually designed the 1930s–60s passes; the archive is soliciting help from local historians and collectors to attribute them.

The curator frames the collection as more than nostalgia. As transit agencies fight post-pandemic ridership declines and riders reduce boarding to a phone or card tap, the piece argues there’s still room for regularly refreshed, artful pass designs—now on screens—as one small way to make everyday transit feel less generic. It’s also offered as inspiration for anyone designing serialized products where letters, numbers, and color can carry identity.