Gill Sans type specimen by weiK

l l i G s n a S

Inspired by the Underground

1928

A type specimen booklet Weiying Kao

“The first notable attempt to work out the norm for plain letters was made by Mr. Edward Johnston when he designed the sans-serif letter for the London Underground Railways. Some of these letters are not entirely satisfactory, especially when it is remembered that, for such a purpose, an alphabet should be as near as possible ‘fool-proof’… as the philosophers would say—nothing should be left to the imagination of the sign-writer or enamel-plate maker.” Eric Gill, Essay on Typography, published 1931

Contents history

2–3

characteristics styles

6–7

family

8–9

4–5

sizes 10–11 typesetting usage 14–15 colophon 16

12–13

history Category

Sans-serif

Classification

Humanist

Designer

Eric Gill

Foundry Monotype Date created

1926

Date released

1928

Design based on

Jonston Sans

Country of Origin

England

Re-issuing foundries

Monotype, Adobe Systems, ITC

Gill Sans is a sans-serif typeface designed by Eric Gill.

The original design appeared in 1926 when Douglas Cleverdon opened a bookshop in his home town of Bristol, where Gill painted the fascia over the window in sans-serif capitals that would later be known as Gill Sans. In addition, Gill had sketched a design for Cleverdon, intended as a guide for him to use for notices and announcements. Gill further developed it into a complete font family after Stanley Morison of Monotype commissioned the development of Gill Sans to compete with the sans-serif Erbar, Futura and Kabel families, which were being launched in Germany during the latter 1920s. Gill Sans was released in 1928 by Monotype. Gill was a well established sculptor, graphic artist and type designer, and Gill Sans takes inspiration from Edward Johnstonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Johnston typeface for London Underground, which Gill had worked on while

apprenticed to Johnston; this design had attracted considerable attention but as a corporate font was not available for licensing. Gillâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s aim was to blend the influences of Johnston, classic serif typefaces and Roman inscriptions to create a design that looked both cleanly modern and traditional at the same time. Marketed by Monotype as a design of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;classic simplicity and real beautyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, it was intended as a display typeface that could be used for posters and advertisements, as well as a text face for documents such as book blurbs, timetables and price lists than need to be clearly legible at small sizes. Its standard weight is slightly bolder than most normal body text faces. An immediate success, the year after its release the London and North Eastern Railway chose it for all its posters, timetables and publicity material, a use later extended across all British railways. It also soon became used on the modernist, deliberately simple covers of Penguin books. The popularity of Gill Sans influenced many other typefaces, and helped to define the genre of the humanist sans-serif. It is distributed with iOS and Mac OS X and bundled with some Microsoft software as Gill Sans MT. More unusual weights, such as condensed, schoolbook and shadowed versions, can be licensed from Monotype.

characteristics * All letters set in Gill Sans Regular

p q

* eyeglass ‘g’ with a peculiar ear parallel to the baseline

* flat-topped ‘p’ & ‘q’

EF * oblique terminal

* arms of the same length

* fluid question mark

a t Q DR G d *

* sharp triangular-cut on top of the ‘t’

* illustrative asterix

* oblique terminal

* two story ‘a’

* calligraphic tail

* flatbottomed ‘d’

styles

* The typeface is renowed for its inconsistencies between weights, as they were not mechanically produced from a single design.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Light

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Regular

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. SemiBold

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy Bold

The quick brown fox jumps over UltraBold

* All styles set on 24 pt

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Light Italic

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Italic

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. SemiBold Italic

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Bold Italic

y dog. the lazy dog.

“…each weight retains a distinct character of its own. The light font, with its heavily kerned ‘f ’ and tall ‘t’, has an open, elegant look. The regular font has a more compact and muscular appearance, with its flat-bottomed ‘d’, flat-topped ‘p’ and ‘q’, and short, triangular-topped ‘t.’ The bold font tends to echo the softer, more open style of the light, while the extra bold and ultra bold have their own vivid personalities.” Monotype Imaging Inc, Hidden Gems: Gill Sans

family

1234567890 ABCDEFGHIJK LMNOPQRSTU VWXYZ * Gill Sans Regular 50 pt

abcdefghijkl mnopqrstu vwxyz

* Gill’s lettering is based on classic roman proportions, which give the sans-serif a less mechanical feel than its geometric contemporaries. The typeface was initially recommended for advertising and headline use, but as the public got used to reading sansserif, Gill Sans turned out to work just as well for body text.

[ ]` ´ √ - – — = \ ‘ ’ : ; / . , ~ ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ + | ± { } “ ” ? < ∞ >™ § ≠ ®»©†‡æ≈¥˜≤≥÷˚∆… * Gill Sans Regular 30 pt (for glyphs only)

the Helvetica of England

8 pt

sizes

the Helvetica of England 10 pt

the Helvetica of England 12 pt

the H 36 pt

the Helvetica of England 18 pt

the Helvetica of England 24 pt

the Helvetica of England 30 pt

the 60 pt

* All sizes on GIill Sans Regular

the Helv 72 pt

Gill San

Helvetica of England

the Helvetica of England 48 pt

Helvetica of England

vetica of England

typesetting

The alphabet, which at the time only contained uppercase letters, was noticed by Stanley Morison for its commercial potential. A Monotype advisor, Morison commissioned Gill to develop a complete font family to compete with the sans-serif designs released by German foundries fueled by the overwhelming success of Futura. The font was released commercially by Monotype in 1928 as Gill Sans.

Regular 10 / 12 pt

The alphabet, which at the time only contained uppercase letters, was noticed by Stanley Morison for its commercial potential. A Monotype advisor, Morison commissioned Gill to develop a complete font family to compete with the sansserif designs released by German foundries fueled by the overwhelming success of Futura. The font was released commercially by Monotype in 1928 as Gill Sans. Regular 12 / 14 pt

usage

First unveiled in a single uppercase weight in 1928, Gill Sans achieved national prominence almost immediately, when it was chosen the following year to become the standard typeface for the LNER railway system, soon appearing on every facet of the company’s identity, from locomotive nameplates and station signage to restaurant car menus, printed timetables and advertising posters. When British Railways was created by nationalisation in 1948, Gill Sans was used in much of its printed output, including timetables. Specially drawn variations were developed by the British Transport Commission for signs, but these characters are not authentic Gill. The corporate rebranding of BR as British Rail in 1965 introduced Rail Alphabet for signage, and Helvetica and/or Univers for printed matter. Other users included Penguin Books’ iconic paperback jacket designs from 1935, and Gill Sans became Monotype’s fifth best selling typeface of the 20th century. The typeface continues to thrive to this day, often being held to bring an artistic or cultural sensibility to an organisation’s corporate style. Monotype themselves use it in their corporate style, and the typeface was prominently used by many public service organisations. These include Railtrack (and now Network Rail), which used Gill Sans for printed matter, the Church of England, which adopted Gill Sans as the

typeface for the definitive Common Worship family of service books published from 2000, and the British Government, which formally adopted Gill Sans as its standard typeface for use in all communications and logos in 2003. It has been described as ‘the English Helvetica’ because of its great, lasting popularity in British design. The BBC adopted the typeface as its corporate typeface in 1997. Explaining the change, designer Martin Lambie-Nairn said that “by choosing a typeface that has stood the test of time, we avoid the trap of going down a modish route that might look outdated in several years’ time.” Until 2006, the corporation used the font in all its media output; however, the unveiling of its new idents for BBC One and BBC Two has signalled a shift away from its universal use, as other fonts were used for their respective on-screen identities, but the BBC logo still uses the typeface. Since 2001, Gill Sans is the official corporative typeface of the Spanish Government (Gobierno de España).

Gill Sans 1928

Designer Weiying Kao References * en.wikipedia.org/wiki/gill_sans * idsgn.org/posts/know-your-type-gill-sans/ * behance.net/gallery/7734493/Studying-Gill-Sans * thepresentationdesigner.co.uk/blog/5-classic-presentation-fonts/ * main type used â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Gill Sans Regular, designed by Eric Gill, 1928.

Inspired by the underground

“The shape of letters do not derive their beauty from any sensual or sentimental reminiscence… Moreover it is a precise art. You don’t draw an A and then stand back and say: “there, that gives you a good idea of an A as seen through an autumn mist”, or: “that’s not a real A but gives you a good effect of one.” Letters are things not pictures of things.” Eric Gill