An Edmondson card is 30.5 × 57 mm of unbleached pasteboard, letterpress-printed in a jobbing shop, pressed with the date at the counter and punched through at the barrier. Nothing on it is decorative: the station pair printed twice, fare and kilometres sharing a line, a serial struck by a numbering machine, a narrow coloured stripe down the long axis.

This system takes that card as a layout instrument. Flush-left parallel language blocks, hairline rules instead of boxes, slab figures against grotesque names, ink that bites into buff stock. Corners are guillotined square and everything lies flat — no elevation, no float, no rounding.