Gill Sans

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Gill Sans
Typeface name Helvetica
Category Sans-serif
Classifications Humanist
Designer(s) Eric Gill
Foundry Monotype

Gill Sans is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Eric Gill in 1927-30. Gill was a well established sculptor, graphic artist and type designer, and the Gill Sans typeface takes inspiration from Edward Johnston’s Railroad Gothic typeface, which Gill had worked on while apprenticing to Johnston. Eric Gill attempted to make the ultimate legible sans serif text face. Gill Sans was designed to function as well as a text face as for display. The uppercase of Gill Sans is modeled on the monumental Roman capitals like those found on the Column of Trajan, and the Caslon and Baskerville typefaces. The BBC adopted the typeface as its house voice.

The capital M in Gill Sans is based on the proportions of a square with the middle strokes meeting at the center 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 modeled on the lowercase Carolingian script. The Carolingian influence is noticable 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 residual calligraphic tail reminiscent of Caslon and Baskerville. Gill Sans serves as a model for several later humanist sans-serif typefaces including Syntax and FF Scala Sans.

[edit] References

  • Ott, Nicolaus, Friedl Fredrich, and Stein Bernard. Typography and Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Throughout History. Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers. 1998, ISBN 1-579-2-023-7
  • Johnson, Jaspert & Berry. Encyclopedia of Type Faces. Cassell & Co 2001, ISBN 1-84188-139-2
  • Carter, Sebastian. Twentieth Century Type Designers, W.W. Norton 1995. ISBN 0-393-70199-9

[edit] Other organisations using Gill Sans

[edit] External links

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