One of my
favourite everyday
typefaces. This is an
elegant '
humanist'
sans serif face that was designed by the
British sculptor,
typographer and
child abuser
Eric Gill.
It is very easy to read at many different sizes.
Apparently, Gill based this on the London Underground typeface designed by Edward Johnson, and the similarities are clear. The fonts were released by the Monotype Corporation in the late twenties, and the eccentric, classically-inspired modernism of the face seems to reflect that era.
At a restaurant that I used to work in, the menus were set in Gill Sans Light, and their logo in a mixture of GS Light and GS Regular. When Eric Gill's daughter went public with details of the abuse that she and her siblings suffered, and some church removed his Stations of the Cross, I sent the proprietors into a frenzy of doubt when I flippantly suggested that they should boycott the font. I eventually put them out of their misery by pointing out that the late Mr. Gill's children were probably the ones who'd be getting any royalties on the fonts anyway.