  We suggest and develop a novel approach for describing topological properties
of a periodic system purely from the transfer matrix associated to a unit cell.
This approach is employed to obtain a simple pictorial proof of the Zak phase
bulk-edge correspondence for any one dimensional system. We apply the transfer
matrix method to study some generalisations of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH)
model, such as the tetramer SSH4 model and a dimerised one-dimensional photonic
crystal.
