Gill Sans

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Typeface	Gill Sans
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 Johnston typeface for London Underground, which Gill had worked on while apprenticed to Johnston. Eric Gill attempted to make the ultimate legible sans-serif text face. Gill Sans was designed to function equally well as a text face and for display.

1 Characteristics
2 Usage
3 Bibliography
4 External links

[edit] Characteristics

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 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 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.

[edit] Usage

The BBC adopted the typeface as its corporate typeface in 1997. Until 2006, the corporation used the font in all of 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. Other organisations using Gill Sans include AMD, BBC, Bloc Party, British Rail (prior to 1965), Beltronics STi driver radar detector, Benetton Group, Carlton Television, Channel 4, More4 and Film4 for English subtitles on foreign-language films, Communist Party of Britain, Computer Concepts, Cunard Line for names on the sides of their ships, Firedog, Her Majesty's Government, JCB, L.J. Hooker, LNER (prior to 1948), Mango (charity), Monotype, Network Rail, Otis College of Art and Design, Philips, QVC, Royal Society of Arts, which awarded designer Eric Gill the accolade "Royal Designer for Industry", Saab Automobile, Santos Limited, Seven Network (Australia) in certain news and current affairs programming, Slovenian euro coins^[1], Germany-based Stiebel eltron, the University of Southampton, album art for The Eraser, by Thom Yorke, TNT (courier company), Transperth for railway station signs, bus stops, and timetables, Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Commons, and World Vision.

[edit] Bibliography

Carter, Sebastian. Twentieth Century Type Designers, W.W. Norton 1995. ISBN 0-393-70199-9.
Johnson, Jaspert & Berry. Encyclopedia of Type Faces. Cassell & Co 2001, ISBN 1-84188-139-2.
Ott, Nicolaus, Friedl Fredrich, and Stein Bernard. Typography and Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Throughout History. Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers. 1998, ISBN 1-57912-023-7.