SR1: Joanne Klados

GILL SANS

Known as the “Helvetica of England”, Gill Sans began life as a piece of signage in Bristol 1926. Here Eric Gill introduced this sans-serif typeface on the fascia of Douglas Cleverdon’s Bookshop. Eric Gill was an established graphic artist, sculptor and type designer. His inspiration was that of Edward Johnston’s “Johnston” typeface which appeared in London Underground. Noticed for its commercial potential, Monotype Corporation officially released Gill Sans in 1928 and was used a year later on publicity material in the London North Eastern Railway (LNER), by Cecil Dandridge. Not only did it become the standard typeface for LNER but also BBC adopted Gill Sans as its corporate typeface and in 1935 it appeared on the now iconic Penguin books. 

Gill Sans Font used on a poster in the
London North Eastern Railway

                                    

With the aim of having its advertisement’s stand out the Gill Sans family ranges from Light to exaggerated Bold with each weight maintaining its own character. The light font has an elegant and open look, with its heavily kerned ‘f’ and tall ‘t’. It is mostly used in magazines and bookwork whilst the bold type is best used on advertisements and publicity forms. A more muscular and compact appearance is seen with the regular font with its flat-topped ‘p’ and ‘q’, flat-bottomed ‘d’, and short top ‘t.’

Gills Sans common weights and styles

There are noticeable contrasts between Gill Sans Regular and Gill Sans Italic. For example the bold ‘a’ compared to the italic ‘a’. Not only is the counter more prominent in the italic but there is no swooping stroke at the end. Another example shows Gill Sans italic ‘p’ where the counter and stem meet, it overlaps. This gives a more refined and humanized effect to it.

Since the 1930’s people have questioned Gill’s deletion of the foot serif in the lower-case “1” in Johnston’s model. It allowed distinction between the numeral 1, uppercase i, and lowercase L. In addition, Gill removed the ending of the vertical stroke in ‘p’, ‘q’, b’ and ‘d’, and change them so they were in the medium weight.

Comparison of lowercase L, uppercase
i and numeral 1 in Gill Sans and Johnston

Gill Sans Light (above) and
Gill Sans Regular (below)

Compared to the Helvetica g Gill Sans g is known as the eyeglass type. It stands out more often than that of Helvetica and differentiates itself from its other letters. It changes form entirely when changed to the Ultra Bold weight g. The thickness of the letter in the bold does not allow four strokes and two counters to fit within the vertical space. Gill Sans has also designed the lowercase ‘y’ with a straight descending tail to make the letter appear unbalanced and rigid. The capital M is based on the idea of a square. The middle strokes meet in the centre of that square whilst when comparing this to the Helvetica capital M, the strokes meet down the bottom.

Initially Gill Sans was used for commercialism including advertising and headline use but now is increasing being used in body text. Famous clothing brands such as tommy Hilfiger use Gill Sans in their logo, movies such as Toy Story and in 2009 Barrack Obama used Gill Sans on his Presidential campaign poster. 

Reference List: 

'Font Designer: Eric Gill' (2011) retrieved 3rd March from: http://www.linotype.com/391/ericgill.html


'Hidden Gems' (2011) retrieved 3rd March from: http://www.monotypefonts.com/Library/HiddenGems.asp?show=gillsans


'Know your type: Gill Sans' (2009) retrieved 3rd March from; http://idsgn.org/posts/know-your-type-gill-sans/


'Typeface of the month: Gill Sans" (2005) retrieved 4th March from: http://www.markboulton.co.uk/journal/comments/typeface-of-the-month-gill-sans


'Gill Sans' (2001) retrieved 4th March from: http://www.fonts.com/font/monotype-imaging/gill-sans


'Analysing Gill Sans' (2009) retrieved 4th March from: http://derricknation.wordpress.com/2009/05/17/a-look-at-gill-sans/