Gill Sans Booklet
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sans Gill TYPOGRAPHY FOR PRINT 1234567890 BY PRINCE HENEBENG INTRO h his book focuses on Gill Sans, a sans-serif typeface family designed by Eric Gill for the Monotype foundry in the years 1927 through 1930. Due to its many uses within the field of transportation, including British Rail signage and White Star line cruise ship name lettering, this book uses travel as its Tinspiration. BACKGROUND OF GILL SANS he history of Gill Sans stems from Edward Johnston’s Ticonic typeface, Johnston Sans, designed for the London Underground in 1913. Eric Gill, who had studied under Johnston at London’s Central School of Arts and Crafts, later became a friend and apprentice and even had a small role assisting in creation of the proprietary typeface. HISTORY n 1916 Edward Johnston was asked to create a typeface for the London Underground’s signage and timetables and Eric Gill assisted in that project. IWhen Monotype asked Gill to design his own sans-serif for the foundry he simply revised the existing Johnston alphabet. The capital letters remained much the same but the lower case letters required changes. Gill retained the two-story lower case g, introduced his own curvaceous R and, though controversial at the foundry, designed an upper case J and Q that descended below the baseline. In addition, the capital M in Gill Sans is based on the proportions of a square with the middle strokes meeting at the center. USAGE Gill Sans rose to popular- ity in 1929 when it became the standard typeface for the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER), appearing on everything from locomotive nameplates to time tables. TYPEFACE FAMILY light light italic regular italic bold bold italic DESIGNER ric Gill has never been easy to pigeonhole: a socialist Catholic, a spir- itually minded family man, a keen and active admirer of female and ty- pographic curves alike. For many decades, Gill a stonecarver, graphic artist, type designer and writer has been one of the most fascinating Efigures on the British design scene (although, as he explains in his own inimitable style, he is not particularly fond of “design”). We are extremely proud to have struck up a dialogue with one of the great letter makers of the twentieth century. Meet Eric Gill, a man in love with letters and life. HISTROY OF DESIGNER ric Gill, born in 1882, described him- self on his own grave- stone as a “stone carver” which embraced two of his lifelong activities, sculpture and Ethe cutting of inscriptional letters. Gill, who developed an early interest in art, began letter- carving at 17. At Central School for Arts and Crafts in London he attended lettering classes by Edward Johnston, 10 years his senior, who became his mentor. In 1903 he became a self-employed craftsman and was commissioned for signs, sculptures and the carved stations of the cross for the Westminster Cathedral in London. LETTERS AND NUMBERS Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 SPECIAL CHARACTERS ! @ £ $ % ^ & * ( ) - _ + = { } [ ] ; : ‘ “ \ | , . < > ? / GILL SANS IN OTHER POINTS Underground Underground Pt 7 Underground Pt 8 Underground Pt 10 Pt 12 Underground Underground Pt 18 Underground Pt 24 Pt 36 Underground Pt 48 Underground Pt 72 Underground Pt 150 INFLUENCED BY THE ‘UNDERGROUND’ hen Futura became a bestseller in Germany of the Johnston characters made a wonderfully readable in the late 1920s, Stanley Morison (see “6: text font, despite their small x-height. The explanation WTimes”) began looking for a British for this was that the characters of Gill’s new typeface equivalent for his employer Monotype. Sometime were based in the first instance on Roman forms and towards the end of 1928, he thought of the sculptor zand graphic artist Eric Gill, and the impressive sans-serif for the London Underground on which Gill had worked proportions, with their forms made geometrical by the with Edward Johnston seven years earlier. Something designer in a subsequent second step. like that might make a good “Futura killer”. orison set off that same day to the tiny Welsh etween 1929 and 1932, more than 36 series of Gill hamlet of Capel-y-ffin, where the 42-year-old Sans were created for use in mechanical MGill had moved in 1924 to complete his Btypesetting. What distinguishes this sans-serif – as Perpetua typeface. It did not take Morison long to compared to Futura – is not only the pronounced convince the artist that he was the right man for the contrast in weights, but indeed that all its fonts have a job, especially as Gill had no end of unused ideas for distinct character of their own because they were not typefaces lying around. derived mechanically from the same design. n London, two weeks later, they examined Gill’s old and new type sketches together. Morison was Iastonished to see that, with only a few changes, many CHARACTERISTICS and the lowercase p has a vestigial calligraphic tail he uppercase of Gill Sans is modelled on the reminiscent of the italics of Caslon and Baskerville. Gill monumental Roman capitals like those found Sans serves as a model for several later humanist on the Column of Trajan, and the Caslon and sans-serif typefaces including Syntax and FF Scala Sans. Baskerville typefaces. An Infant variety of the typeface with single-story TThe capital M from Gill Sans is based on the proportions versions of the letters a and g also exists. of a square with the middle strokes meeting at the centre of that square. The Gill Sans typeface family contains fourteen styles and has less of a mechanical feel he basic glyph shapes do not look consistent than geometric sans-serifs like Futura, because its across font weights and widths, especially in proportions stemmed from Roman tradition. Unlike Extra Bold and Ultra Bold weights, and realist sans-serif typefaces including Akzidenz Grotesk Extra Condensed width. However, even in and Univers the lower case is modelled on the Tlighter weights, some letters do not look consistent. For lowercase Carolingian script. example, in letters p and q, the top strokes of counters do not touch the top of the stems in Light, Bold, Heavy he Carolingian influence is noticeable in the fonts, but touch the top of the stems in Book, Medium two-story lowercase a, and g. The lowercase t is fonts. similar to old-style serifs in its proportion and oblique terminus of the vertical stroke. TFollowing the humanist model the lowercase italic a becomes single story. The italic e is highly calligraphic, RE-DESIGN r a Gill Sans proves an excellent typeface when work- ing with logo design and negative space. Its simple and sturdy characters exude a certain confidence and a powerful identity. EXAMPLES OF GOOD USAGE.