December 16th, 2005
Typeface of the month: Gill Sans
‘Gill Sans, is he mad?’, I hear you cry.
Well, Gill Sans — as well as Helvetica — are perhaps the two typefaces I use the most. I have a love / hate relationship with them both, or rather with particular weights of both, but they are two typefaces which continue to surprise me with their beauty and versatility.
As we’re all probably aware Gill Sans is a pretty standard font these days, used and abused as a result of being part of a default font installation on certain operating systems. Like Times New Roman, a lot of people have become tired of its expressive curves (yes, that’s right, I did say ‘expressive’). I’m hoping after reading this, at the very least, you’ll look upon Gill Sans with fresh eyes.
A bit of history
Gill Sans was designed by Eric Gill in the 1920’s and issued by Monotype in 1928 to 1930. Eric Gill studied under the calligrapher and stonemason, Edward Johnston, at the Central School in London so therefore it comes as no surprise that Gill Sans is based on his teachers typeface for London Underground, Johnston Underground.
Due to it’s legibility and its ‘Britishness’, Gill Sans has been adopted by many companies and organisations as their corporate typeface. Notable mentions are:
- BBC
- Royal Society of Arts
- The Church of England
- Network Rail
Not to mention the number of companies who have had typefaces designed which have been heavily influenced by Gill Sans.
The typeface itself and that horrible ‘a’
Gill Sans is a beautifully designed typeface which, unfortunately, has suffered at the hands of software, and to a certain extent, its own popularity.
The characters are hard, sculptured forms which clearly show Gill’s education and artistic roots. There’s the legibility of a serif face, balanced with the authority of a sans-serif. Gill Sans can seem friendly in its lighter weights, making it perfect for body text, and with its rounded letter forms and limited adornments, it’s highly legible. The bolder weights are perfect for display or signage purposes, but then there’s that ‘a’.
If there’s one thing about Gill Sans that puts me off is the lower case ‘a’. Just look at it. Top heavy, unbalanced and well, just weird looking.
Live with Gill Sans for one year
Early on in my college days, when I knew nowt, one of my typography lecturers was having a bit of a rant about typefaces. His main gripe was that with so many fonts at our disposal, designers and especially students, are like kids in a candy store and generally, he said, it was to the detriment to the design.
‘Learn to live with a typeface for one or two years, try to use nothing else but that face’. You can imagine the looks on our faces. However, due to corporate branding guidelines for the past three years I’ve been in that position in my day job. It was pretty tough to begin with, coming from a commerical company who specialised in branding with a ‘new brand, different typeface this time’ approach. Now, however, I sometimes struggle to use different typefaces when faces like Gill Sans and Helvetica answer the design problems so elegantly.
To wrap up. Classic typeface — overused and misunderstood — but next time you need to design a form, signage, or need to communicate something which is quintasentially British, then spare a thought for Gill Sans. 7 out of 10. (it would be 8, but that ‘a’…)
I love Gill Sans Light but as it gets heavier I like it less.
But overall it is elegant and is very English and its distant cousin Johnston can be seen every day on the Tube!
How could you!!!
Gill Sans must be one of the unversatile fonts available.
? Gill Sans Light is nice and the only weight worth using
? Gill Sans Regular = hardly any difference from Light
? GillSans Bold is just ugly
? Gill Sans ExtraBold just gives me nightmares!
and I’m not going to even mention the italic version as the ‘a’ just completley
5 out of 10
Better san serif fonts include:
? Franklin Gothic
? Frutiger
? Futura
? Helvetica
? Din
? Profile
Graham — Ah, like I said, try and live with it for a year or so. I’d have to disagree with your choices though.
Although the list you provided is indeed packed with beautiful sans-serif faces I wouldn’t deem any of them ‘better’. Why? Well calling something better than another implies a purpose — better at what? Being a font? Being more beautiful? More legible?
As much of a looney toon as Eric Gill was, he knew type. Gill Sans is a big favorite of mine as well. I can’t seem to find any visuals at the moment, but I believe I read (and saw) in Gill’s essay on typography that he originally intended for Gill Sans to be much different than where it ended up. Before, it was much more rigidly geometrical?at the expense of legibility. I will see if I can track down that image.
It should be noted that gills sans takes its form in a large part from the earlier humanist forms along with the more modern geometric forms –it is this mix of history and modernity that is just one of the many reasons that makes gill so special in many peoples hearts.
As the list above contains only grotesque and geometric typefaces, it would be wrong to simply label them as ‘better’ than gill, as they have highly differant philosophical origins behind their creation. –Which might lead one to the conclusion that gills thoughts on design were of a far higher order than that of the relatively simplistic modernist dreams.
It should also be noted just how influential the italic faces were on later type design. Simply revelatory!
–I’d say ‘typeface of the month’ isn’t a title that works particularly well with the nature of these posts. A brief history or introduction would perhaps be better, i don’t know… –Month gives a particulary fashionable feel to the text, but then i have to offer some criticism of your blog ;-)
Hope your healing well mr b
I believe I’ve heard that the original Roman weight is the only true Gill original — the rest were created later by others.
I too have had to use Gill for the last 3 years for a corporate identity. You get used to it.
I think Extra Bold was created via cheap drugs.
Interesting thought that — staying with one font for a year. Probably very good advice for design novices (such as myself).
humbug: Did you copy that out of a text book ? :) And am I the only one who hasn’t read it! hehehe
Century Gothic anyone ? as seen at…
Speaking of Eric Gill, I have an unexplicable love for his Joanna, which he used in his famous Essay on Typography.
Mark, I love reading your little essays here, you’re an excellent writer. The editor in me (it’s my job) is forced to point out many errant apostrophes in this post, however. The best way to keep “its” versus “it’s” sorted in one’s mind is to remember that “it’s” translates to “it is,” and also to remember that the possessive “its” is parallel to the possessive “his” and “hers” and like them does not use an apostrophe. I did once encounter an editor who changed all my “hers” to “her’s” but not for long ;-)
Sorry to be nitpicky.
humbug — Typeface of the Month was used simply to give an indication to the publishing schedule. You are right though, maybe it gives a undesirable fashionable angle to post. Oh, and I’m healing up just nicely thank you :)
brad — Bloody apostophes, I really do have a problem with them. nightschool for me I think… ;)
I too have a love hate relationship with Gill Sans. As a personal preference, it has some quirks that don’t appeal to me, such as how far the leg on the “R” extends, but that isn’t to discredit Eric Gill’s extraordinary ability to create typefaces.
Sometime a face is just appropriate for a situation, no matter how much you don’t want to use it. That’s the problem I constantly have with Gill Sans. :)
Little trivia: Edward Tufte uses Gill Sans as the display font for the cover of ?Visual Explanations?, all about his website as well as sprinkled throughout the interior of the books.
I use Gill Sans, most notably, when I am displaying empirical/numerical data. I have used it for this purpose on a number of projects (including mini-annual reports and the like). It is a good work horse and not a bad sans for the job.
PS: How do you guys get those kewl logos/avatars next to your name?s? I usually just see Mark?s up there and thought it was a ?owner of the site? thing. Then I see JSM?s and am desparate to paste my own in there.
Kewl avatars?
http://www.gravatar.com/
Apparently.
Terry — It’s a Gravatar — you can get them at gravatar.com :)
Glad to here your on the mend,
–its not that i think there is anything implicitly wrong with being fashionable you understand, but i thought you were perhaps exploring something else in relation to your choices thus far. Perhaps i was taking the title a little too literately –I certainly for one hope that Gill gets some use into ‘06 and beyond!
I know where you’re coming from on the work-with-t-for-a-year thing. Here at the University of Lethbridge, their font of choice is Frutiger and as a result, I have grown to love it. In fact, it has become my favourite, but I still love posts like these because they help me to appreciate beautiful typefaces.
I’m suprised you (and other commenters) didn’t make more of the italic. In my mind one of the best italic versions of a sans-serif around. Gotta love that lowercase italic “p”…
Do you remember when the UK Radio Times (TV listings) was in Gill Sans? The extrabold always looked really clunky.
Working at a University I have access to lots of typography books — I’m just reading Anthony Froshaug by Robin Kinross (Hyphen Press), and in there is a Gill Sans with an alternate, open, ‘a’ and ‘g’ — page 78.
The alternates were drawn by Gill for Monotype and issued in the 30s as hot metal, according to Froshaug. The closest thing I can find on the Monotype site is Gill Sans Schoolbook — I tried a sample and it looks quite close to the examples in the Froshaug book, which are admittedly about 2 inches across.
I do agree with your typography lecturer, although it reminds me of a story by type designer James Goggin aka Practise, explaining the history of his Courier Sans. It shows that such restricting rules can lead to new creativity, too.
:)
The Gill regular seems to be to heavy for normal use. So I do not use Gill, because of its dark look. Also the most Gill Families have no harmonic weights. Only the Berthold family seems to be good in all weights.
For normal use I recently discover the Gill regular on board of Apple OS X (Tiger). This seems to be the right weight for all purposes in normal copy. But it is a Truetype at all.
Gah! I’ve detested Gill Sans since school. Earney above has a point about the lighter weights — the light weights don’t look so bad.
As a Yank, I had not considered “Britishness” as an attribute — something to consider over a cuppa Tetley. =)
I think your time at Peter Gill and the BBC have clouded your judgement Mark.
I’m afraid I’ll have to agree to disagree with you on this one.
You mention that the typeface is used by the BBC and the Church of England. But for me, its most striking use has been by Penguin Books, who have used it since they published their first ten titles in 1935. Phil Baines charts Penguin’s design and use of typefaces in his excellent book, Penguin by Design.
Gill Sans rules, especially GS Light. Nuff said.
They typeface you use should reflect the client or project you are using it for. I like your candy store illustration, but with most kids I know, they are always drawn to she same candy every time. The fact of the matter is that different fonts are needed to communicate various messages. We should not use a font just because it looks nice. The font may not be the message a client really wants to be sending.
Caleb — You’re absolutely right, I hope I wasn’t implying that in the post. The communication values of a typeface are essential in creating a succesful design.
However, some typographic designers would argue that you only need a handful of fonts. Coupled with the skill of the designer, this handful of fonts would be appropriate for the majority of work. Some typographic designers would totally disagree with this though — <cite>Eric Spiekermann</cite> for one has said something along the lines of <q>“well, you would just have three ties now would you”</q>.
He’s got a point.
I’m a fan of Gill Sans too, but going a year with one font, that I have to try!
Erik Spiekermann is speaking at One Friday 24 November, Prince Charles Cinema, London
http://www.onefriday.co.uk
I’d completely agree about only using a handful of fonts. For me Erik Spiekermann’s quote is of target. I have a large number of ties, but ties are superfluous decoration and a suit looks fine without them. It’s more a matter of how many suits I have — and that’s a handful.
What Operating Systems is Gills Sans standard on?
I use Gill Sans MT to draft my letters as I can read it nicely!
One other way I like to think about type is a particular face’s “voice”. Is it aggressive? Calm? Complex or brutish? Loud or soft? Girly or masculine?
I try to visualize what a font “sounds” like sometimes when trying to choose. That “voice” can change again in various sizes and contexts.
I adore Gill Sans for almost any use in it’s lighter weights. However, the bolder variants feel sort of cartoon-ish to me, and I generally don’t like them. They can be appropriate for certain uses, but I feel like the bolder weights of Gill Sans keep it from being a great all-around font that can be used in amost any circumstance.
Still, I’m a fan. :)
Um, One Friday is actually on 24 *February* 2006.
But, back on topic — Gill Sans is one of the defining typefaces of the 20th century, and I think the ?a? is fantastic, as is the lowercase ?r?.
The thing about Gill that sets it apart from many of its contemporaries is that it is a humanist sans serif, and draws on Roman inscriptional forms too ? it wasn?t until Frutiger?s eponymous face in the 70s that someone could have claimed to have brought forth a face of the same calibre, and a humanist sans too.
Much of the really good type design of the 90s and early 21st century draws on these two groundbreaking faces, and arguably we would not have seen them otherwise.
It’s a really interesting discussion! I’m echoing a point that was raised eailer by a few people, it’s one of my favourite fonts (I have a clutch of 5 of 6 fonts that I always tend to use because they’re so versatile but have a slight personality/edge to them), but I wouldn’t dream of using any weight heavier than regular — it’s as if the bold/extra bold are entirely different faces altogether. The light weight is incredible, though.
Gill Sans is beggging for a redraw to address the bold problem — it’s amazing that it hasn’t happened; a foundry should step in and create a usable Gill Sans family with depth. ..
Thanks Mark, I never had a problem with the l/c a before. That’s going to bug me from now on!
I agree with the love/hate relationship. I hate using them as they are everywhere but usually love the pieces once they’re finished. I have also loved pieces straight away only to ask upon further inspection… wait a minute is that gill sans.…? huh… looks pretty good. Didn’t see that coming. Anyway, cool site. To quote the governator of California, “I’ll be back.”
I love Gill Sans myself, but I agree that its heavier weights are terrible. I’d kill for a nice bold, and doubly so for a demi. Wasn’t Monotype or someone releasing a Pro version? Probably just an Opentype version of the existing faces, though.
I just put together some promotional materials with Gill Sans as the main font; I?m more than happy with the results.
It works (at least to my eye) very well as a contrast to Hoefler Text. But Gill?s italic capital C looks like it?s about to roll to the right!
I’ll always associate Gill Sans with Paul McCartney; most of his 70’s solo albums (and Wings albums, too) sported the font for lyrics, credits, and so on.
As a designer, I don’t care to use it a lot– it looks kinda undernourished in certain layouts sometimes…
I love gill sans. and helvetica. you keep on man.