Gill Sans

Gill Sans is based on classic roman proportions not geometric forms, its rounded letter forms and simplicity makes it remarkably legible. Designed to be a simple, functional and effective font, Gill Sans was initially suited to advertising posters, headlines, display signage and movie posters. It was superior to other fonts, such as Caslon and Baskerville, due to its visibility and universal lettering. However, as the public became more exposed to reading sans serif fonts, as opposed to traditional, embellished serif fonts, it became widely used for body text as well.

Working as a young apprentice with Edward Johnston, who designed the iconic Johnston Sans used in the London Underground in 1913, Eric Gill showed great competency and knowledge of type design. He reviewed Johnston Sans and as a sans serif font contained many notable errors. Gill set out to create a typeface which was not only legible for the sign writer or enamel plate maker, but also highly marketable with commercial potential, in order to compete with the German designed sans serif Futura. Contrary to Futura’s mathematically and mechanically designed lettering, Gill Sans was developed with the fluid, organic influence of his hand-writing. The ‘fool proof’ typeface was commercially released by Monotype in 1928. (Eric Gill, Essay on Typography, published 1931)





The original Gill Sans was released as metal type, however due to its popularity, legibility and great clarity, over thirty-six variations were developed. These variations were not mechanically derived from a single design, but rather by the Monotype office under Eric Gill’s guidance. Due to this there are many inconsistencies between weights and lettering across all the variations.
The Gill Sans font family ranges from Light to Ultra Bold, yet each weight has a distinct character of its own, and can often be mistaken as a derivative of a different font. The light font has an elegant look perfect for body text, while the extra bold and ultra bold are robust and full of character.

Gill Sans is classified as a humanist sans serif font, as it is similar in proportion to classical Roman lettering and has a distinct presence of the hand. The distinct eyeglass ‘g’ and top heavy ‘a’ shows the distinct roots of pen writing and gives the font an organic structure, rather than a mechanically derived one.

The typeface became popular in 1929 when it became the standard typeface for the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER). Gill Sans was being used on number plates, timetables, corporate logos and the iconic Penguin Books covers; giving Gill Sans international exposure and credit. It is now used as a staple font in many corporate logos, packaging design, body-text in books and more commonly on our Sydney street signs.

References:

http://www.monotypefonts.com/Library/HiddenGems.asp?show=gillsans
http://www.markboulton.co.uk/journal/comments/typeface-of-the-month-gill-sans
http://www.idsgn.org/posts/know-your-type-gill-sans/
http://msp.sfsu.edu/instructors/rsellers/fall_2000/f13b.html
http://vimeo.com/2984722