When Eric Gill turned his creative attentions from sculpture and calligraphy to type design in the 1920’s, he brought with him the skill and perfectionism of a craftsman acquired through years of experience. His attitude towards type design was as keen and prolific as it had been with the other mediums. Namely, he meant to create “Absolutely legible-to-the-last-degree letters, provide beauty of form to all printed communication, and to maintain the dignity of hand drawn letterforms.”
Gill Sans was initially introduced in 1928, and Gill himself worked to perfect the design throughout the 1930’s. Based on Roman character shapes, the design maintains a warmth and humanity not typically associated with sans serif typefaces. While each character shares design attributes with the others, the individual characters have their own organic uniqueness and are not derivatives of a single design. The Light, with its heavily kerned ‘f’ and tall ‘t,’ is open and elegant. The Regular, with its flat-bottomed ‘d,’ flat-topped ‘p’ and ‘q,’ and triangular-topped ‘t,’ has a more compact and muscular appearance. The Bold tends to echo the softer, more open style of the Light, while the Extra Bold and Ultra Bold have their own vivid personalities.
Gill Sans qualifies as a super family not only due to its large variety of available weights, but because of the respect and heritage that the font carries. Eric Gill’s craftsmanship shines throughout the widely-used typeface that bears his name.