a geometric font face
ERIC GILL Gill Sans was developed in the 1920’s in Britain as an improved alternative to the Johnston typeface. It was quickly picked up and released by Monotype as a set of titling capitals. A lower-case version came after to complete the font set. A year later, it became the key font for the London and North Eastern Railway which blew up its success and useage all around Great Britain, being used in everything from restaurant signs to flyers to vehicle names. Eric
Gill
took
heavy
inspiration
from
a
typeface
developed
by
Edward Johnston in 1916. He was familiar with the font as he had originally helped develop it in its early stages. Gill Sans was his perfected version of
the
Johnston
font
and
contains
subtle,
but
strong,
differences.
the most prominent letters in this set are ‘a’ ‘Q’ and ‘R’
Gill Sans was primarily popular for its metal letter forms during the metal age of typography. Its unique shapes made for a versitile font face . The italic face for this font is made from different letter shapes due to the boldness of the letters in regular form. rather than just simply slanting the upright typeface.
REFINED BOLD MINIMAL
Light AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPp QqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz Light Italic AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPp QqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz Regular AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPp QqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz Italic AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPp QqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZzW SemiBold AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPp QqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz SemiBold Italic AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPp QqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz Bold AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPp QqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz Bold Italic AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPp QqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz Ultra Bold AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPp QqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz
QUAL ITY QUALITY
I TA L I C S RAILWAY R A I L W AY
lawyers lawyers create NEW
letterforms
bugger b u g ge r
the lowercase ‘g’ has a perfectly horizontal ear piece
TRAIN STATION
B L O O DY W A N K E R
LO N D O N ’ S F I N E S T DELICIOUS FOOD CHEERS LOVE
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 NOT OPEN ALL ABOARD C A N’T
COMPL AIN
RE A L LY
PO D C A STS AND BO O K S A N D T EA AL L
MOUT H
NO
T RO U SE R S
MALLARD
Q R 10 pt with 12 pt leading
Gill Sans originally started as a titling caps typeface, but had a lowercase set added later on. The italic letter forms are not simply just the original typeface slanted, but rather are completely different which can be seen in the uppercase “q” and lowercase “a” the easiest. It was argued that the letter faces were too bold and it impaired legebility.
The font became quickly used all over Britain but didn’t really take up an interest overseas due to it primarily being popular in the metal ages of typography. Later when it was implemented as a system font in Macintosh computers it became popular once more.
12 pt with 14 pt leading
QW Do you think it’s only coincidence that modern wizard films take place in Britain? These authors and film-makers might be onto something.
11 pt with 12 pt leading
14 pt with 16 pt leading
The light version of this type face provides a softer mood to your text. Gill Sans is a very versitile typeface that can be used for a number of different situations. The capital set is incredibley geometric while the lowercase set appears more varied and rides on the edge of humanistic. This makes Gill Sans a good compliment to itself when designing.