Gill

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INTRO

Th 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 inspiration.

The history of Gill Sans stems from Edward Johnston’s iconic 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.

BACKGROUND OF GILL SANS

HISTORY

In 1916 Edward Johnston was asked to create a typeface for the London

Underground’s signage and timetables and Eric Gill assisted in that project. When 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.

USAGEGill 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

lightlight italicregularitalicboldbold italic

DESIGNER

Eric 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

figures 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

Eric 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

the 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 Londonhe attended lettering classes by Edward Johnston, 10 years his senior, who became his mentor.In 1903 he became a self-employed craftsman and wascommissioned 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

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GILL SANS IN OTHER POINTS

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Pt 18Pt 24

Pt 36

Pt 48

Pt 72

Pt 150

When Futura became a bestseller in Germany in the late 1920s, Stanley Morison (see “6: Times”) began looking for a British

equivalent for his employer Monotype. Sometime 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 with Edward Johnston seven years earlier. Something like that might make a good “Futura killer”.

Morison set off that same day to the tiny Welsh hamlet of Capel-y-ffin, where the 42-year-old Gill had moved in 1924 to complete his

Perpetua typeface. It did not take Morison long to convince the artist that he was the right man for the job, especially as Gill had no end of unused ideas for typefaces lying around.

In London, two weeks later, they examined Gill’s old and new type sketches together. Morison was astonished to see that, with only a few changes, many

of the Johnston characters made a wonderfully readable text font, despite their small x-height. The explanation for this was that the characters of Gill’s new typeface were based in the first instance on Roman forms and

proportions, with their forms made geometrical by the

designer in a subsequent second step.

Between 1929 and 1932, more than 36 series of Gill Sans were created for use in mechanical typesetting. What distinguishes this sans-serif – as

compared to Futura – is not only the pronounced contrast in weights, but indeed that all its fonts have a distinct character of their own because they were not derived mechanically from the same design.

INFLUENCED BY THE ‘UNDERGROUND’

The uppercase of Gill Sans is modelled on the monumental Roman capitals like those found on the Column of Trajan, and the Caslon and Baskerville typefaces.

The capital M from Gill Sans is based on the proportions 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 than geometric sans-serifs like Futura, because its proportions stemmed from Roman tradition. Unlike realist sans-serif typefaces including Akzidenz Grotesk and Univers the lower case is modelled on the lowercase Carolingian script.

The Carolingian influence is noticeable in the two-story lowercase a, and g. The lowercase t is similar to old-style serifs in its proportion and oblique terminus of the vertical stroke.

Following the humanist model the lowercase italic a becomes single story. The italic e is highly calligraphic,

and the lowercase p has a vestigial calligraphic tail reminiscent of the italics of Caslon and Baskerville. Gill Sans serves as a model for several later humanist sans-serif typefaces including Syntax and FF Scala Sans. An Infant variety of the typeface with single-story versions of the letters a and g also exists.

The basic glyph shapes do not look consistent across font weights and widths, especially in Extra Bold and Ultra Bold weights, and Extra Condensed width. However, even in

lighter weights, some letters do not look consistent. For example, in letters p and q, the top strokes of counters do not touch the top of the stems in Light, Bold, Heavy fonts, but touch the top of the stems in Book, Medium fonts.

CHARACTERISTICS

RE-DESIGN

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EXAMPLES OF GOOD USAGE

Gill Sans proves an excellent typeface w

hen work-

ing with logo design and negative space. Its sim

ple and sturdy characters exude a certain confidence

and a powerful identity.