Gill Sans is the product of an artist turned typographer Eric

Gill The original design appeared in 1926 when Douglas Clev-

erdon opened a bookshop in his home town of Bristol, where
Eric Gill painted the fascia over the window in sans-serif
capitals that would be later be known as Gill Sans.

Gill further developed it into a complete font family after

Stanley Morison commissioned the development of Gill Sans
to combat the families of Erbar, Futura and Kabel which were
being launched in Germany during the latter 1920s. Gill Sans
was later released in 1928 by Monotype Corporation.

gill sans
Gill Sans became popular when in 1929 Cecil Dandridge

commissioned Eric Gill to produce Gill Sans to be used on the

London and North Eastern Railway for a unique typeface for
all the LNER’s posters and publicity material.

Gill Sans is classified as a humanist san serif font. San Serif

fonts are fonts that are void of having small features at the
end of the stroke. However, a slight serif is evident in Gill’s
lower case and uppercase letters. This is what allows for this
font to be a hybrid font incorporating classical versions of
Roman Type.
gill sans

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
gill sans ultra bold

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
gill sans italic

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
 Characteristics of Gill Sans
are unique to the artist
himself. Containing hard-
sculpted forms, this is also a
likely representation of Gill
carrying his artistic sculpt-
ing knowledge and applying
that basis to the creation of
this typeface. There is also a

charact
pronounced contrast in the

r a
strokes. This is seen primarily in the letter “ ” and “ ”. Gill
Sans contains over 14 different variations with this typeface.
The lighter of these fonts is seen to be the best example of
Gill Sans. This is mainly due by the legibility factor of the
stroke weights within the font. The Bolder the font becomes
the more illegible the font is. There is a complete juxtaposi-
tion of letterforms from Gill Sans Regular to Gill Sans Bold.
There are stark contrasts between Gill Sans Regular and Gill
a
Sans Italic. Notice this is the letter “ ” in Gill Sans Regular;
a
this is an example of the letter “ ” in Gill Sans Italic. Notice
how the there is no swooping
stroke at the end of the letter
in Italic and how the counter
is much more prominent.
f
Also the lowercase letter “ ”
in Gill Sans Italic goes below
the baseline of the font itself.
p
The Italic “ ” actually over-
laps each other where the

eristics
counter and stem meet. This

could possibly be another reason why people felt it had a more

human feel to it. Among other examples is the Bolder faces of
r
this type the lowercase “ ” loses its stroke to a more bulbous
R
rounded end. The signature elongated uppercase “ ” and low-
g
ercase “ ” resembling eyeglasses are exemplary of the Futuris-
tic movement in which Gill was a part of.
M
The capital “ ” from Gill Sans is based on the proportions of
a square with the middle strokes meeting at the centre of that
t
square. And also the lowercase “ ” is similar to old-style serifs
in its proportion and oblique terminus of the vertical stroke.
 usage
Gill Sans is feature in much
of the British Culture. It is
the font used for all the
street signs in the United
Kingdom. This may be the
reason why BBC use gill sans
in their logo. Among more
notable things Gill Sans is
also featured as the Title
for Wine and Dine Maga-
zine and online dating site e
Harmony. Famous clothing
brands like Tommy Hilfiger,
United Colors Of Benetton
use gill sans in their logo.
This font has been used in
some famous hollywood
movie titles. For example
Popular children’s animated
film Chicken Little (ultra
bold) and Environmental
Documentary :An Incon-
venient Truth in which
contained Gill Sans Bold. In
the two thousand and nine
presidential election Presi-
dent Barack Obama used
Gill Sans on his presidential
campaign poster.