View source for Gill Sans

{{Short description|Humanist sans-serif typeface}}
{{good article}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2020}}
{{Infobox typeface
| name = Gill Sans
| familyname =
| image = GillSansEG.svg
| style = [[Sans-serif]]
| classifications = [[Sans-serif#Humanist|Humanist]]
| creator = [[Eric Gill]]
| foundry = [[Monotype Corporation|Monotype]]
| creationdate = 1926
| releasedate = {{Start date and age|1928}}
| trademark =
| based_on = [[Johnston (typeface)|Johnston]]
| aka =
| variations = Gill Kayo<br>Gill Sans Nova
}}
'''Gill Sans''' is a [[Sans-serif#Humanist|humanist]] [[sans-serif]] [[typeface]] designed by [[Eric Gill]] and released by the British branch of [[Monotype Imaging|Monotype]] in 1928. It is based on [[Edward Johnston]]'s 1916 "[[Johnston (typeface)|Underground Alphabet]]", the corporate typeface of [[London Underground]].

As a young artist, Gill had assisted Johnston in its early development stages. In 1926, [[Douglas Cleverdon]], a young printer-publisher, opened a bookshop in [[Bristol]], and Gill painted a [[fascia (architecture)|fascia]] for the shop for him using sans-serif capitals. In addition, Gill sketched an alphabet for Cleverdon as a guide for him to use for future notices and announcements. By this time, Gill had become a prominent stonemason, artist and [[letter cutting|creator of lettering]] in his own right, and had begun to work on creating typeface designs.

Gill was commissioned to develop his alphabet into a full [[Typeface#Typeface family|type family]] by his friend [[Stanley Morison]], an influential Monotype executive and historian of printing. Morison hoped that it could be Monotype's competitor to a wave of German sans-serif families in a new "[[Sans-serif#Geometric|geometric]]" style, which included [[Erbar (typeface)|Erbar]], [[Futura (typeface)|Futura]] and [[Kabel (typeface)|Kabel]], all of which had been launched to considerable attention in Germany during the late 1920s. Gill Sans was initially released as a set of titling capitals that was quickly followed by a lower-case. Gill's aim was to blend the influences of Johnston, classic serif typefaces and [[Roman square capitals|Roman inscriptions]] to create a design that looked both cleanly modern and classical at the same time. Because Gill Sans was designed before the practice of setting documents entirely in sans-serif text became common, its standard weight is noticeably bolder than most modern body text fonts.

Gill Sans was an immediate success; a year after its release, the [[London and North Eastern Railway]] (LNER) chose the typeface for all its posters, timetables and publicity material. [[British Rail#Nationalisation in 1948|British Railways]] chose Gill Sans as the basis for its standard lettering when the [[Big Four (British railway companies)|Big Four]] railway companies were nationalised in 1948. Gill Sans also soon became used on the deliberately simple modernist covers of [[Penguin Books]], and was sold up to very large font sizes, which were often used in British posters and notices of the period. Gill Sans was one of the dominant typefaces in British printing in the years after its release, and remains extremely popular. It has been described as "the British [[Helvetica]]" because of its lasting popularity in British design. Gill Sans has influenced many other typefaces and helped to define a genre of sans-serif, known as the [[Sans-serif#Humanist|humanist]] style.

Monotype rapidly expanded the original regular or medium weight into a large family of styles, which it continues to sell. A basic set is included with some [[Microsoft]] software and [[List of fonts in Mac OS X#System fonts|macOS fonts]].

==Characteristics==
[[File:Gill Sans compared to other sans-serifs.png|thumb|Gill Sans compared to other sans-serifs of the period. Gill Sans does not use the single-storey "g" or "a" used by many sans-serifs and is less monoline than Johnston. Its structure is influenced by traditional serif fonts such as Caslon rather than being strongly based on straight lines and circles as Futura is.]]
The proportions of Gill Sans stem from [[Roman square capitals|monumental Roman capitals]] in the uppercase, and traditional [[Serif#Old-style|"old-style"]] serif letters in the lower-case. This gives it a very different style compared to [[Sans-serif#Geometric|geometric]] sans-serifs based on simple squares and circles, like [[Futura (typeface)|Futura]], or [[Sans-serif#Grotesque|grotesque or "industrial"]] designs influenced by nineteenth-century lettering styles, like [[Akzidenz-Grotesk]], Helvetica and [[Univers]].<ref name="Tracy2003 general">{{cite book|first=Walter|last=Tracy|author-link=Walter Tracy|title=Letters of Credit: A View of Type Design|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y8NssjbqNcsC&pg=PA87|date=January 2003|publisher=D.R. Godine|isbn=978-1-56792-240-0|pages=87–98}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Kupferschmid|first1=Indra|title=Multi-axes type families|url=http://kupferschrift.de/cms/2012/05/multi-axes-families/|website=kupferschrift|date=13 May 2012 |access-date=8 December 2014}}</ref><ref name="Gerstner English">{{cite journal|last1=Gerstner|first1=Karl|author-link1=Karl Gerstner|title=A new basis for the old Akzidenz-Grotesk (English translation)|journal=Der Druckspiegel|date=1963|url=http://forgotten-shapes.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/a-new-basis-for-akzidenz-grotesk-english-translation.pdf|quote=[Futura and Gill Sans from] the nineteen-twenties are highly individual interventions in typeface development. They both bear the stamp of the people who designed them...Gill was attempting, ideally, to establish a link to tradition. He drew a sans-serif typeface, [like Renner with Futura] with the aid of the compass and ruler, but based on the visual regularity of a serif roman.|access-date=15 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171015202441/http://forgotten-shapes.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/a-new-basis-for-akzidenz-grotesk-english-translation.pdf|archive-date=15 October 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Gerstner German">{{cite journal|last1=Gerstner|first1=Karl|author-link1=Karl Gerstner|title=Die alte Akzidenz-Grotesk auf neuer Basis|journal=Der Druckspiegel|date=1963|url=http://forgotten-shapes.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/akzidenz-grotesk-auf-neuer-basis-german-original.pdf|access-date=15 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171015202204/http://forgotten-shapes.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/akzidenz-grotesk-auf-neuer-basis-german-original.pdf|archive-date=15 October 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref> For example, the "C" and "a" have a much less "folded up" structure compared to grotesque sans-serifs, with wider [[Aperture (typography)|apertures]].<ref name="Majoor My Type Design Philosophy">{{cite web|last1=Majoor|first1=Martin|author-link=Martin Majoor|title=My Type Design Philosophy|url=http://www.typotheque.com/articles/my_type_design_philosophy|website=Typotheque|date=29 November 2004 |access-date=12 November 2015}}</ref> The "a" and "g" in the [[Roman type|roman or regular]] style are "double-storey" designs, rather than the "single-storey" forms used in handwriting and [[blackletter]] often found in grotesque and especially geometric sans-serifs.

[[File:Trajan (2959610060).jpg|thumb|left|A drawing and photographed carving by Gill of the "Trajan" capitals on [[Trajan's Column]] in Rome, a model for the capitals of Gill Sans and Johnson. Respected by Arts and Crafts artisans as among the best ever drawn, many signs and lettering projects created with an intentionally artistic design are based on them.<ref name="In Defence of the Roman Letter">{{cite journal|last1=Nash|first1=John|title=In Defence of the Roman Letter|journal=Journal of the Edward Johnston Foundation|url=http://www.ejf.org.uk/Resources/JRNarticle.pdf|access-date=13 October 2016}}</ref><ref name="Trajan Revived">{{cite journal |last1=Mosley |first1=James |date=1964 |title=Trajan Revived |journal=Alphabet |volume=1 |pages=17–48}}</ref>]]

The uppercase of Gill Sans is partly modelled on Roman capitals, such as those found on [[Trajan's Column]] in Rome, with considerable variation in width. These had become a [[Trajan lettering|standard for inscriptional lettering]] in Britain at the time: Gill's teacher [[Edward Johnston]] had written that "the Roman capitals have held the supreme place among letters for readableness and beauty. They are the best forms for the grandest and most important inscriptions."<ref name="In Defence of the Roman Letter" /><ref name="Trajan Revived" /><ref name="Calligraphic tendencies in the development of sanserif types in the twentieth century" /><ref name="Writing & Illuminating & Lettering">{{cite book|last1=Johnston|first1=Edward|author-link=Edward Johnston|title=Writing & Illuminating & Lettering|date=1906|publisher=Macmillan|pages=[https://archive.org/details/writingilluminat00johnrich/page/268 268]–269, 384, 391|url=https://archive.org/details/writingilluminat00johnrich}}</ref>

While Gill Sans is not based on purely geometric principles to the extent of the geometric sans-serifs that had preceded it, some aspects of Gill Sans do have a geometric feel.{{efn|Although it is now common to classify Gill Sans and Futura as following separate directions in typeface design, humanist and geometric, this did not seem obvious to contemporary writers who often saw both as a new, more personalised development of the sans-serif letter. Some sources of the period distinguish sans-serifs into the "grotesques" of the nineteenth century and the modern "sans-serifs" of the twentieth, or similar classification structures.}} The J descends below the baseline, the "O" is an almost perfect circle, and the capital "M" is based on the proportions of a square with the middle strokes meeting at the centre; this was not inspired by Roman carving, but is very similar to Johnston.<ref name="Calligraphic tendencies in the development of sanserif types in the twentieth century" />{{efn|[[James Mosley|Mosley]] writes that it is "tempting to speculate" that this may have been Gill's idea even in the Johnston type, since it does not resemble Johnston's calligraphy, although there are naturally many past precedents for the design in signpainting and type.<ref name="Mosley lecture 2015">{{cite speech
 |title=Lecture on Gill's work
 |first1 =James
 |last1=Mosley
 |event= 'Me & Mr Gill' talk
 |publisher= Eye Magazine Ltd.
 |location=Old Truman Brewery, London
 |date=10 November 2015
 |url= http://www.eyemagazine.com/blog/post/noted-71
 }}</ref><ref name="Italian connection" />}} The "E" and "F" are also relatively narrow.

[[File:Gill Sans exemplar 2.png|thumb|right|Distinctive characters of Gill Sans]]
The influence of traditional serif letters is also clear in the "two-storey" lower-case "a" and "g", unlike that of Futura, and the "t" with its curve to bottom right and slanting cut at top left, unlike Futura's, which is simply formed from two straight lines.<ref name="Rabinowitz2015">{{cite book|first=Tova|last=Rabinowitz|title=Exploring Typography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xjRBBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA127|date=1 January 2015|publisher=Cengage Learning|isbn=978-1-305-46481-0|pages=127–9}}</ref> The lower-case "a" also narrows strikingly towards the top of its loop, which is common in serif designs but rarer in sans-serifs.

Following the traditional serif model, the [[Italic type|italic]] has different letterforms from the roman, where many sans-serifs simply slant the letters in what is called an [[Oblique type|oblique]] style. This is clearest in the "a", which becomes a "single storey" design similar to handwriting, and the lower-case "p", which has a calligraphic tail on the left reminiscent of italics, such as those cut by [[William Caslon]] in the eighteenth century.<ref name="Calligraphic tendencies in the development of sanserif types in the twentieth century">{{cite book|last1=Tam|first1=Keith|title=Calligraphic tendencies in the development of sanserif types in the twentieth century|date=2002|publisher=University of Reading (MA thesis)|location=Reading|url=http://keithtam.net/documents/sanserif.pdf|access-date=19 August 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150906080252/http://keithtam.net/documents/sanserif.pdf|archive-date=6 September 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Fifty Years of Typecutting, Monotype Recorder" /> The italic "e" is more restrained, with a straight line on the underside of the bowl where serif fonts normally add a curve.<ref name="Calligraphic tendencies in the development of sanserif types in the twentieth century" />{{efn|Morison had argued for the theory that an oblique made a better match than an italic to an upright font through offering less of a contrast to it. This contention had been a major part of the protracted and tense development of the Perpetua project, begun before Gill Sans but released second, since Monotype management scrapped the oblique for a more normal italic.<ref name="Haley1992">{{cite book|author=Allan Haley|title=Typographic Milestones|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dKeVor1olhkC&pg=PA91|date=15 September 1992|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-0-471-28894-7|pages=91–98}}</ref> Morison ultimately abandoned the idea and ruefully noted that [[Times New Roman]] had an italic that owed "more to [[Firmin Didot|Didot]] than dogma."<ref name="Morison1973_Romulus">{{cite book|last=Morison|first=Stanley|title=A Tally of Types|url=https://archive.org/details/tallyoftypes0000mori|url-access=registration|date=7 June 1973|publisher=CUP Archive|isbn=978-0-521-09786-4|pages=[https://archive.org/details/tallyoftypes0000mori/page/124 124]–5}}</ref>}} Like most serif fonts, several weights and releases of Gill Sans use [[typographic ligature|ligatures]] to allow its expansive letter "f" to join up with or avoid colliding with following letters.<ref name="Fifty Years of Typecutting, Monotype Recorder" />

The basic letter shapes of Gill Sans do not appear consistent across styles (or even in the metal type era all the sizes of the same style), especially in the Extra Bold and Extra Condensed widths, while the [[#Gill Kayo|Ultra Bold]] style is effectively a different design altogether and was originally marketed as such.<ref name="Rhatigan lecture 2015">{{cite speech
 |title=Lecture on the history of Gill Sans
 |first1 =Dan
 |last1=Rhatigan
 |event= 'Me & Mr Gill' talk
 |location=Old Truman Brewery, London
 |date=10 November 2015
 |url= http://www.eyemagazine.com/blog/post/noted-71
 }}</ref> Digital-period Monotype designer Dan Rhatigan, author of an article on Gill Sans's development after Gill's death, said that "Gill Sans grew organically&nbsp;... [it] takes a very 'asystematic' approach to type. Very characteristic of when it was designed and of when it was used."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Rhatigan|first1=Dan|title=All about Workflow|url=http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/dan-rhatigan-all-about-workflow|website=Eye Magazine|access-date=15 February 2015}}</ref><ref name="Gill Sans after Gill">{{cite journal|last1=Rhatigan|first1=Daniel|title=Gill Sans after Gill|journal=Forum|date=September 2014|issue=28|pages=3–7|url=http://image.linotype.com/files/pdf/GillSansArticle.pdf|access-date=26 December 2015|archive-date=15 February 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150215150435/http://image.linotype.com/files/pdf/GillSansArticle.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> At this time, the idea that sans-serif typefaces should form a consistent family, with glyph shapes as consistent as possible between all weights and sizes, had not fully developed; it was normal for families to vary as seemed appropriate for their weight until developments such as the groundbreaking release of Univers in 1957.<ref name="Subtleties of the Univers">{{cite journal|last1=Budrick|first1=Callie|last2=Biemann|first2=Emil|title=Subtleties of the Univers|journal=Print|date=1961|url=http://www.printmag.com/design-inspiration/subtleties-of-the-univers/|access-date=22 January 2016}}</ref>

In the light weights, the slanting cut at top left of the regular "t" is replaced with two separate strokes.{{efn|This is necessary since the slanting cut would unbalance the letter if the stroke weights were lighter.}} From the bold weight upwards, Gill Sans has an extremely eccentric design of "i" and "j", with the dots smaller than their parent letter's stroke.<ref name="Questioning Gill Sans" /><ref name="Eric Gill Monotype Recorder 1958" /><ref name="Coles HOW">{{cite news |last1=Coles |first1=Stephen |title=A Cure for the Common Font |work=[[HOW (magazine)|HOW]] |date=2009 |quote=[The] Light and Roman styles look pretty good on nearly anything. But it suffers from ubiquity…not to mention the dirty secret that many designers don’t discover until it's too late: the family gets more and more awkward towards the heavy end of the spectrum.}}</ref>
{{clear}}

==Development==
[[File:West Brompton.jpg|thumb|An early version of [[Johnston (typeface)|Johnston]] on a [[London Underground]] metal sign. Johnston's design was rendered variably on some older signs; this uses a condensed "R" and four-terminal "W".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Leboff |first1=David |title=London Underground Stations |date=1994 |publisher=Ian Allan |location=Shepperton |isbn=0711022267 |page=150}}</ref>]]
[[File:Figgins sans-serif specimen.jpg|thumb|left|The ultra-bold sans-serifs of the [[Vincent Figgins|Figgins foundry]].<ref name="Figgins 1845">{{cite book|title=Specimen of Plain & Ornamental Types from the Foundry of V. & J. Figgins|date=1845|location=West St. Smithfield, London|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_IkNPAAAAcAAJ|access-date=27 October 2017}}</ref> Gill and Johnston sought to create sans-serif designs that were modern and not as bold as these. Gill argued in his ''[[An Essay on Typography|Essay on Typography]]'' that such closed-up forms were counterproductively bold and less legible than lighter fonts of normal proportions.<ref name="EoT weight" />]]

Morison commissioned Gill to develop Gill Sans after they had begun to work together (often by post since Gill lived in Wales) on Gill's serif design [[Perpetua (typeface)|Perpetua]] in 1925; they had known each other since about 1913. In 1927, Morison visited Cleverdon's bookshop in Bristol, where he was impressed by Gill's fascia and alphabet.<ref name="A Book of Alphabets for Douglas Cleverdon">{{cite book|last1=Dreyfus|first1=John|last2=Cleverdon|first2=Douglas|title=A Book of Alphabets for Douglas Cleverdon|date=1987|publisher=Christopher Skelton|location=Wellingborough, England|isbn=978-0948906015}}</ref> Gill wrote that "it was as a consequence of seeing these letters" that Morison commissioned him to develop a sans-serif family.<ref name="MacCarthy 300">{{cite book|last1=MacCarthy|first1=Fiona|title=Eric Gill|isbn=978-0-571-26582-4|page=300|date=2011-06-16|publisher=Faber & Faber }}</ref><ref name="Eric Gill Monotype Recorder 1958">{{cite journal|title=Eric Gill|journal=Monotype Recorder|date=1958|volume=41|issue=3|url=http://www.metaltype.co.uk/downloads/mr/mr_41_3.pdf|access-date=16 September 2015|archive-date=18 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151018074838/http://www.metaltype.co.uk/downloads/mr/mr_41_3.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|author=Paul Townsend |url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/20654194@N07/2060073382/ |title=Douglas Cleverdon Book Publishers |publisher=Flickr.com |date=20 October 2009 |access-date=7 January 2011}}</ref>{{efn|Cleverdon retained the book of alphabets, which also included model serif capitals and lower-case, before selling it to the [[Harry Ransom Center]] collection in 1967.<ref name="A Book of Alphabets for Douglas Cleverdon" />}}

In the period during and after his closest collaboration with Johnston, Gill had intermittently worked on sans-serif letter designs, including an almost sans-serif capital design in an alphabet for sign-painters in the 1910s and some capital letter signs around his home in [[Capel-y-ffin]], Wales.<ref name="Eric Gill Monotype Recorder 1958" /><ref name="Eric Gill, man of flesh and spirit" />{{efn|The sign-painter's alphabet had very small [[Serif#Latin or wedge-serif|wedge serifs]], similar to the capitals of [[Copperplate Gothic]] and similar designs. This style was occasionally used at the time. Johnston had considered it as a possible structure for the Underground alphabet and it was used on some variants of Johnston by the Underground with the involvement of Johnston's pupil [[Percy Delf Smith]].<ref name="Howes typefaces" />}}  Gill had greatly admired Johnston's work on their Underground project, which he later wrote had "redeemed the whole business of sans-serif from its nineteenth-century corruption" of extreme boldness.<ref name="Calligraphic tendencies in the development of sanserif types in the twentieth century" /><ref name="Nineteenth-century corruption">{{cite book|editor1-last=Shewring|editor1-first=Walter|title=The Letters of Eric Gill|date=1948|publisher=Devin-Adair|pages=435–8|quote=As perhaps you know, I was a pupil of Edward Johnston and was living almost next door to him when he was designing the LPTB sans-serif. It was a revolutionary thing and as you know, it redeemed the whole business of sans-serif from its nineteenth-century corruption. It was not until 1927 that I was asked by the Monotype Corporation to do a sans-serif for them.}}</ref> Johnston apparently had not tried to turn the alphabet (as it was then called) that he had designed into a commercial typeface project.<ref name=Loxley>{{cite book|last1=Loxley|first1=Simon|title=Type: the secret history of letters|date=2005|publisher=I. B. Tauris|location=London|isbn=978-1-84511-028-4|pages=109–121|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9AfP2prmEDUC&pg=PA109|access-date=26 December 2015|chapter=Chapter 9: Going Underground: Edward Johnston's Letters for London}}</ref> He had tried to get involved in type design before starting work on Johnston Sans, but without success since the industry at the time mostly created designs in-house.<ref name="Howes typefaces">{{cite book|last1=Howes|first1=Justin|author-link=Justin Howes|title=Johnston's Underground Type|date=2000|publisher=Capital Transport|location=Harrow Weald, Middlesex|isbn=978-1-85414-231-3|pages=8, 20–21}}</ref> Morison similarly respected the design of the Underground system, one of the first and most lasting uses of a standard lettering style as corporate branding (Gill had designed a set of serif letters for [[WH Smith]]), writing that it "conferred upon [the lettering] a sanction, civic and commercial, as had not been accorded to an alphabet since the time of Charlemagne".<ref name="Garfield2010 Johnston">{{cite book|author=Simon Garfield|title=Just My Type: A Book About Fonts|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SM6wrKiO5osC&pg=PA118|date=21 October 2010|publisher=Profile Books|isbn=978-1-84765-292-8|pages=114–124}}</ref>

[[File:Gill Sans Q, punctuation and manicules (22065785558).jpg|thumb|Some of Gill's original art for Gill Sans, showing the original "Q", punctuation and two [[manicule]]s]]
Morison and Gill had met with some resistance within Monotype while developing Perpetua, and while Morison was an enthusiastic backer of the project, Monotype's engineering manager and type designer [[Frank Hinman Pierpont]] was deeply unconvinced, commenting that he could "see nothing in this design to recommend it and much that is objectionable".<ref name="Eric Gill and the Cockerel Press Upper & Lower Case">{{cite web|last1=Mosley |first1=James |title=Eric Gill and the Cockerel Press |url=http://www.itcfonts.com/Ulc/OtherArticles/GillCockerel.htm |website=Upper & Lower Case |publisher=International Typeface Corporation |access-date=7 October 2016 |url-status=deviated |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120729035625/http://www.itcfonts.com/Ulc/OtherArticles/GillCockerel.htm |archive-date=29 July 2012}}</ref><ref name="Fine Print">{{cite journal|last1=Mosley|first1=James|author-link=James Mosley|title=Eric Gill's Perpetua Type|journal=Fine Print}}</ref><ref name="Eric Gill's Perpetua Type">{{cite book|last1=Mosley|first1=James|editor1-last=Ginger|editor1-first=E.M.|title=Fine Print on Type|date=1989|publisher=Lund Humphries|pages=54–58|chapter=Eric Gill's Perpetua Type}}</ref> (Pierpont was the creator of Monotype's previous mainstay sans-serif, a loose family now called [[Monotype Grotesque]]. It is a much less sculptured design inspired by German sans-serifs.)<ref name="The Nymph and the Grot, an update">{{cite web|last1=Mosley|first1=James|title=The Nymph and the Grot, an update|url=http://typefoundry.blogspot.co.uk/2007/01/nymph-and-grot-update.html|website=Type Foundry (blog)|access-date=6 March 2016}}</ref> Morison also intervened to insist that the letters "J" and "Q" be allowed to elegantly descend below the [[Typeface anatomy|baseline]], something not normal for titling typefaces that were often made to fill up the entire area of the metal type.<ref name="Barker Morison">{{cite book|last1=Barker|first1=Nicolas|title=Stanley Morison|date=1972|publisher=Macmillan|location=London|pages=218–286}}</ref> In the early days of its existence, it was not always consistently simply called "Gill Sans", with other names such as "Gill Sans-serif", "Monotype Sans-Serif" (the latter two both used by Gill in some of his publications) or its order numbers (such as Series No. 231) sometimes used.<ref name="Autobiography">{{cite book|last1=Gill|first1=Eric|title=Eric Gill: an Autobiography|date=1940|publisher=Lund Humphries|page=220}}</ref><ref name="An Essay on Typography Monotype sans-serif">{{cite book|last1=Gill|first1=Eric|title=An Essay on Typography|page=46|title-link=An Essay on Typography}}</ref>

A large amount of material about the development of Gill Sans survives in Monotype's archives and in Gill's papers. While the capitals (which were prepared first) resemble Johnston quite closely, the archives document Gill (and the drawing office team at Monotype's works in [[Salfords]], [[Surrey]], who developed a final precise design and spacing) grappling with the challenge of creating a viable humanist sans-serif lower-case as well as an italic, which Johnston's design did not have.<ref name="Gill Sans after Gill" />{{efn|Some revivals of Johnston, such as a project by [[Berthold Wolpe]], the ITC digitisation and that used by [[Transport for London]] have attempted to synthesise an italic or oblique for Johnston, but Johnston never created one.<ref>{{cite web|title=ITC Johnston|url=http://www.linotype.com/5870/itcjohnstonpro.html|website=fonts.com|publisher=Monotype|access-date=11 July 2015|archive-date=7 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131007233714/http://www.linotype.com/5870/itcjohnstonpro.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> P22's revival declined to add one.<ref>{{cite web|title=P22 Underground pdf specimen|url=https://www.p22.com/family-Underground|publisher=P22|access-date=11 July 2015}}</ref>
}} Gill's first draft proposed many slanting cuts on the ends of [[Ascender (typography)|ascenders]] and descenders (resembling Johnston less than the released version), the latter of which were quite long.<ref name="Gill Sans working drawing">{{cite web|title=Gill Sans working drawing|date=13 January 2005 |url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/zara/3305403/|publisher=St. Bride's Library|access-date=11 January 2016}}</ref><ref name="Terrance Weinzierl: Joanna Sans style and legacy">{{cite web|last1=Walters|first1=John|last2=Weinzierl|first2=Terrance|title=Terrance Weinzierl: Joanna Sans style and legacy|url=http://www.monotype.com/expertise/articles/terrance-weinzierl-joanna-sans-style-and-legacy/|publisher=Monotype|access-date=25 April 2016|archive-date=26 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160826053222/http://www.monotype.com/expertise/articles/terrance-weinzierl-joanna-sans-style-and-legacy/|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Handover Monotype">{{cite journal|last1=Handover|first1=Phyllis Margaret|author-link=P. M. Handover|title=Grotesque Letters|journal=Monotype Newsletter, Also Printed in Motif as "Letters Without Serifs"|url=http://up.stewf.com/0o400K3p302U|date=1958|archive-date=27 March 2022|access-date=1 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220327085544/https://up.stewf.com/0o400K3p302U|url-status=dead}}</ref> 

{{multiple image
 | caption_align= left
 | header_align=center
 | align = left
 | direction = vertical
 | width = 200
 | header =
 | image1 = Pencil To Pixel Gill Sans italic lower case (cropped).jpg
 | alt1 = Gill Sans italic lower case draft
 | caption1 = An early design for the italic lower case with long descenders, and italic caps with swashes dated nine days later
 | image2 = Pencil To Pixel Gill Sans italic capitals (cropped).jpg
 | alt2 = Gill Sans italic capitals
 | caption2 =
}}
Early art for the italic also looked very different, with less of a slope, very long descenders, and [[Swash (typography)|swash capitals]].<ref name="Calligraphic tendencies in the development of sanserif types in the twentieth century" /><ref name="Fifty Years of Typecutting, Monotype Recorder" /><ref name="Gill Sans after Gill" />{{efn|This resulted in a design somewhat similar to [[Goudy Sans]] of a few years later. The development of Johnston had gone through a similar paring-down process a decade earlier, in which the idea of incorporating many calligraphy-influenced glyphs, like a capital-form "q" in the lower-case, was considered then abandoned.<ref name="Calligraphic tendencies in the development of sanserif types in the twentieth century" />}} The final version did not use the calligraphic italic "g" that Gill preferred in his serif designs Perpetua and [[Joanna (typeface)|Joanna]] (and considered in the draft italic art),<ref name="Handover Monotype" /> instead using a standard "double-storey" "g".<ref name="Calligraphic tendencies in the development of sanserif types in the twentieth century" /><ref name="The Letter Forms and Type Designs of Eric Gill 36-48">{{cite book|last1=Harling|first1=Robert|title=The Letter Forms and Type Designs of Eric Gill|date=1975|publisher=Published by Eva Svensson, and printed by the Westerham Press|location=Westerham, Kent|isbn=978-0-903696-04-3|pages=36–48|edition=[1st U.S. ed.].}}<!--|access-date=3 March 2016--></ref>

[[File:Gill Sans and Johnston.tiff|thumb|alt=Comparison between Gill Sans and Johnston|Johnston ''(upper)'' and Gill Sans ''(lower)'', showing some of the most distinctive differences]]

In the regular or [[Roman type|roman]] style of Gill Sans, some letters were simplified from Johnston, with diamond dots becoming round (rectangles in the later light weight) and the lower-case "L" becoming a simple line. However, the "a" became more complex, with a curving tail in most versions and sizes.<ref name="Gill Sans after Gill" /><ref name="Ditchling Museum of Art & Craft FIU">{{cite web|last1=Baines|first1=Phil|title=Ditchling Museum of Art & Craft|url=http://fontsinuse.com/uses/5702/ditchling-museum-of-art-craft|website=Fonts in Use|date=7 January 2014 |access-date=15 April 2016}}</ref> In addition, the design was simply refined in general, such as by making the horizontals slightly narrower than verticals so that they would not appear unbalanced, a standard technique in font design which Johnston had not used.<ref name="Calligraphic tendencies in the development of sanserif types in the twentieth century" /><ref name="Loxley" /> The "R" with its widely splayed leg was Gill's preferred design, unlike that of Johnston; historian [[James Mosley]] has suggested that this may be inspired by an Italian Renaissance carving in the [[Victoria and Albert Museum]] in London.<ref name="Italian connection">{{cite web|last1=Mosley|first1=James|title=Eric Gill's R: the Italian connection|url=http://typefoundry.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/eric-gills-r-italian-connection.html|website=Type Foundry|access-date=11 November 2015}}</ref><ref name="Monument to Marchese Spinetta Malaspina">{{cite web|title=Monument to Marchese Spinetta Malaspina|url=https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O102495/monument-to-marchese-spinetta-malaspina-monument-firenze-antonio-da/|publisher=Victoria & Albert Museum|access-date=11 November 2015}}</ref> 

[[File:PencilToPixel - 25 (8713318369).jpg|thumb|left|1940s notes from Monotype's records discuss the different drawings used for the bdpq characters]]

Particular areas of thought during the design process were the "a" (several versions and sizes in the hot metal era had a straight tail, like Johnston's, or a mildly curving tail), "b", "d", "p" and "q", where some versions (and sizes, since the same weight would not be identical at every size) had stroke ends visible and others did not.<ref name="Rhatigan lecture 2015" /><ref name="Gill Sans after Gill" /><ref name="Questioning Gill Sans" />{{efn|An accessible specimen showing this is the Monotype Recorder article on the LNER timetable, which prints the sizes and weights the LNER favoured: stroke ends are visible on the 18 pt medium on "d", "p" and "q", but not at 10 pt.<ref name="Preparing a railway timetable" />}} Rhatigan has commented that Monotype's archives contain "enough [material] for a book just about the 'b', 'd', 'p', and 'q' of Gill Sans".<ref name="Gill Sans after Gill" /><ref>{{cite tweet|user=ultrasparky|author=Dan Rhatigan|number=162871441828741120|date=27 January 2012|title=I am again stunned by the sheer amount of info in Monotype's archive. There's enough for a book just about the b, d, p, and q of Gill Sans.}}</ref>

The titling capitals of Gill Sans were first unveiled at a printing conference in 1928; it was also shown in a specimen issued in the ''[[The Fleuron|Fleuron]]'' magazine, edited by Morison.<ref name="Fifty Years of Typecutting, Monotype Recorder">{{cite journal|title=Fifty Years of Typecutting|journal=Monotype Recorder|date=1950|volume=39|issue=2|pages=11, 21|url=http://www.metaltype.co.uk/downloads/mr/mr_39_2.pdf|access-date=12 July 2015|archive-date=5 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305022755/http://www.metaltype.co.uk/downloads/mr/mr_39_2.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Barker Morison" /> While initial response was partly appreciative, it was still considered dubious by some ultra-conservative printers who saw all sans-serif type as modern and unsound; one called it "typographical [[Bolshevism]]".<ref name="Eric Gill, man of flesh and spirit" /><ref name="Sample page of Eric Gill's 'Gill Sans' from The Fleuron, 1928">{{cite web|last1=Ashworth|first1=Mikey|title=Sample page of Eric Gill's "Gill Sans" from The Fleuron, 1928|url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/36844288@N00/23553452720|website=Flickr|date=19 December 2015 |access-date=1 May 2016}}</ref> Sans-serifs were still regarded as vulgar and commercial by purists in this period. Johnston's pupil [[Graily Hewitt]] privately commented that: <blockquote>In Johnston I have lost confidence. Despite all he did for us&nbsp;... he has undone too much by forsaking his standard of the Roman alphabet, giving the world, without safeguard or explanation, his block letters which disfigure our modern life. His prestige has obscured their vulgarity and commercialism.<ref name="Howes other typefaces" /></blockquote> Nonetheless, Gill Sans rapidly became popular after its release.

Gill Sans' technical production followed Monotype's standard method of the period. The characters were drawn mirrored on paper in large plan diagrams by the drawing office team, led and trained by Pierpont and Fritz Steltzer, both of whom Monotype had recruited from the German printing industry.<ref name="Time and Times again" /> The drawing staff who executed the design was disproportionately female; they worked out many aspects of the final drawings including adaptations of the letters to different sizes and the spacing.<ref name="Savoie">{{cite journal |last1=Savoie |first1=Alice |title=The women behind Times New Roman |journal=Journal of Design History |date=1 December 2020 |volume=33 |issue=3 |pages=209–224 |doi=10.1093/jdh/epaa025}}</ref> The diagrams were then used as a plan for machining metal punches by [[pantograph]] to stamp [[Matrix (printing)|matrices]], which would be loaded into a casting machine to cast type.<ref name="Time and Times again">{{cite web|last1=Rhatigan|first1=Dan|title=Time and Times again|url=http://ultrasparky.org/archives/2011/09/time_and_times_.html|publisher=Monotype|access-date=28 July 2015}}</ref><ref name="Changing the Times">{{cite web|last1=Morison|first1=Stanley|author-link=Stanley Morison|title=Changing the Times|url=http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/stanley-morison-changing-the-times|website=Eye|access-date=28 July 2015}}</ref> It was Monotype's standard practice at the time to first engrave a limited number of characters and print proofs (some of which survive) from them to test overall [[Type color|balance of colour]] and spacing on the page, before completing the remaining characters.<ref name="Gill Sans after Gill" /> Rhatigan, [[Walter Tracy]], and Gill's biographer Malcolm Yorke have all written that the drawing office's work in making Gill Sans successful has not been fully appreciated. Yorke described Gill as "tactless" in his claims that the design was "as much as possible mathematically measurable&nbsp;... as little reliance as possible should be placed on the sensibility of the draughtsmen and others concerned in its machine facture".<ref name="Gill Sans after Gill" /><ref name="Eric Gill, man of flesh and spirit" />

===Reception===
Gill Sans rapidly became very popular. Its success was aided by Monotype's sophisticated marketing, led by Gill's supporter [[Beatrice Warde]], and due to its practicality and availability for [[hot metal typesetting|machine composition]] in a very wide range of sizes and weights.<ref name="Badaracco" /><ref name="Plumed Hats and Modern Typography">{{cite journal|last1=Warde|first1=Beatrice|title=Plumed Hats and Modern Typography|journal=Commercial Art|date=1932|url=http://magazines.iaddb.org/issue/CAI/1932-01-01/edition/null/page/16|access-date=10 August 2017|archive-date=15 December 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181215173342/https://magazines.iaddb.org/issue/CAI/1932-01-01/edition/null/page/16|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Despite the popularity of Gill Sans, some reviews were critical. [[Robert Harling (typographer)|Robert Harling]], who knew Gill, wrote in his 1976 anthology examining Gill's lettering that the density of the basic weight made it unsuitable for extended passages of text, printing a passage with it as a demonstration.<ref name="The Letter Forms and Type Designs of Eric Gill 36-48" /> The regular weight has been used to print body text for some trade printing uses, such as guides to countryside walks published by the LNER.<ref name="Rambles in series">{{cite web|title="Rambles in&nbsp;..." series, London and North Eastern Railway|url=http://fontsinuse.com/uses/14035/rambles-in-series-london-and-north-eastern-ra|website=Fonts in Use|access-date=17 September 2016}}</ref> [[William Addison Dwiggins]] described it and Futura as "fine in the capitals and bum in the lower-case" while proposing to create [[Metro (typeface)|Metro]], a more individualistic competitor, for Linotype around 1929.<ref name="Shaw Dwiggins Metro">{{cite web|last1=Shaw|first1=Paul|title=William Addison Dwiggins: Jack of All Trades, Master of More than One|url=http://www.linotype.com/3245/william-addison-dwiggins.html|publisher=Linotype|access-date=26 December 2015|archive-date=16 June 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190616121633/https://www.linotype.com/3245/william-addison-dwiggins.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> Modern writers, including Stephen Coles and Ben Archer, have criticised it for failing to improve on Johnston and for unevenness of colour, especially in the bolder weights.<ref name="Archer" /><ref name="Questioning Gill Sans" /> More generally, modern font designer [[Jonathan Hoefler]] has criticised Johnston and Gill's designs for rigidity, calling their work "products more of the machine than the hand, chilly and austere designs shaped by unbending rules, whose occasional moments of whimsy were so out of place as to feel volatile and disquieting".<ref name="Hoefler Ideal Sans">{{cite web|title=Ideal Sans|url=http://www.typography.com/fonts/ideal-sans/overview/|publisher=[[Hoefler & Frere-Jones]]|access-date=26 December 2015}}</ref>

Gill broached the topic of the similarity with Johnston in a variety of ways in his work and writings, writing to Johnston in 1933 to apologise for the typeface bearing his name and describing Johnston's work as being important and seminal.<ref name="Howes other typefaces" /><ref name="Book of the Week: The Ditchling Community">{{cite web|last1=Derrick|first1=Michael|title=Book of the Week: The Ditchling Community|url=http://archive.thetablet.co.uk/article/12th-september-1959/12/books-of-the-week|website=[[The Tablet]]|access-date=24 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150919204935/http://archive.thetablet.co.uk/article/12th-september-1959/12/books-of-the-week|archive-date=19 September 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref> However, in his ''[[An Essay on Typography|Essay on Typography]]'', he proposed that his version was "perhaps an improvement" and more "fool-proof" than Johnston's.<ref name="An Essay on Typography Monotype sans-serif" /> Johnston and Gill had drifted apart by the beginning of the 1920s, something Gill's biographer [[Fiona MacCarthy]] described as partly due to the anti-Catholicism of Johnston's wife Greta.<ref name="MacCarthy anti-Catholicism">{{cite book|last1=MacCarthy|first1=Fiona|title=Eric Gill|date=1990|publisher=Faber|location=London|isbn=978-0-571-14302-3|page=[https://archive.org/details/ericgill0000macc/page/141 141]|url=https://archive.org/details/ericgill0000macc/page/141}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Loxley|first1=Simon|title=Type|isbn=978-0-85773-017-6|pages=161–3|date=2006-03-31|publisher=Bloomsbury }}</ref> [[Frank Pick]], the [[Underground Electric Railways Company of London|Underground Electric Railways Company]] managing director who commissioned Johnston's typeface, privately believed Gill Sans to be "a rather close copy" of Johnston's work.<ref name="Howes other typefaces" />
{{clear}}

===Expansion and new styles===
[[File:Gill Sans display fonts.png|thumb|right|Some of the fonts of the Gill Sans family that are mostly intended for display use. Detail differences are obvious, especially the "single-storey" "a" on Extra Condensed Bold.]]

Following the initial success of Gill Sans, Monotype rapidly produced a wide variety of other variants.<ref name="Gill Sans after Gill" /> In addition, Monotype sold moulds ([[Matrix (printing)|matrices]]) for Gill Sans in very large sizes for their "Supercaster" type-casting equipment. Popular with advertisers, this allowed end-users to cast their own type at a very competitive price.<ref name="Mosley lecture 2015" /><ref name=Badaracco>{{cite journal|last1=Badaracco|first1=Claire|title=Innovative Industrial Design and Modern Public Culture: The Monotype Corporation, 1922–1932|journal=Business & Economic History|date=1991|volume=20 (second series)|pages=226–233|url=http://www.thebhc.org/sites/default/files/beh/BEHprint/v020/p0226-p0233.pdf|access-date=19 December 2015|publisher=Business History Conference}}</ref> This made it a popular choice for posters. Gill's biographer Malcolm Yorke described it as "the essence of clarity for public notices".<ref name="Yorke2000">{{cite book|first=Malcolm|last=Yorke|title=Eric Gill: Man of Flesh and Spirit|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OhopB-7hqUwC&pg=PA249|date=7 July 2000|publisher=Tauris Parke Paperbacks|isbn=978-1-86064-584-6|page=249}}</ref>

Versions of Gill Sans were created in a wide range of styles, such as condensed and shadowed weights.<ref name="Gill Sans after Gill" /><ref>{{cite web|last1=Rhatigan|first1=Dan|title=Gill Sans Extra Light|url=https://instagram.com/p/g8CanzrHJV/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/iarchive/s/instagram/g8CanzrHJV |archive-date=2021-12-24 |url-access=limited|website=Instagram|publisher=Monotype via Instagram|access-date=3 May 2015}}{{cbignore}}</ref> Several [[Shadowed font|shadowed designs]] were released, including a capitals-only regular shadowed design and a light-shadowed version with deep relief shadows. In the metal type era, a "cameo ruled" design that placed white letters in boxes or against a stippled black background was available.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Fuga|first1=Giangiorgio|title=Riscatype 028029: Gill Sans specimen booklet 1938|date=26 November 2007 |url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/giofuga/2065974620}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Fuga|first1=Giangiorgio|title=Riscatype 0030: Gill Sans specimen book 1938|date=26 November 2007 |url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/giofuga/2065976264}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Gill Sans specimen book|url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/alan98/8241213759|website=Flickr photo of Gill Sans specimen book|date=3 December 2012 |publisher=Monotype|access-date=3 May 2015}}</ref><ref name="36 pt Gill Cameo Ruled">{{cite web|title=36 pt Gill Cameo Ruled|date=24 July 2009 |url=https://handandeye.wordpress.com/2009/07/24/36-pt-gill-cameo-ruled/|publisher=Hand & Eye Letterpress|access-date=26 February 2017}}</ref> The shadowed weights were intended to be used together with the regular, printing in different colours, to achieve a simple multicolour effect.<ref name="Gill Sans Shadow colours">{{cite web|title=Gill Sans Shadow colours|url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/frankrolf/23159022060|website=Flickr|date=8 November 2015 |publisher=Monotype|access-date=18 December 2015}}</ref> Some of the decorative versions may predominantly have been designed by the Monotype office, with Gill examining, critiquing and approving the designs sent to him by post.<ref name="Sallie Morris lecture 2015">{{cite speech
 |title=Lecture on Gill's typefaces
 |first1 =Sallie
 |last1=Morris
 |event= 'Me & Mr Gill' talk
 |location=Old Truman Brewery, London
 |date=6 November 2015
 |url= http://www.reading.ac.uk/typography/pg-research/typ-pgrwhatisit/typ-pgrresearchstudentstopics.aspx
 }}</ref> The long series of extensions, redrawings and conversions into new formats of one of Monotype's most important assets (extending long beyond Gill's death) has left Gill Sans with a great range of alternative designs and releases.<ref name="Gill Sans after Gill" /> In 1993, a book weight suitable for body text was created in between the light and regular weight, along with a heavy weight.<ref name="The Monotype Chronicles: 1992– 1996">{{cite web|title=The Monotype Chronicles: 1992–1996|url=https://www.monotype.co.uk/DynamicPage/View.cfm?PageName=tl_1992_96|publisher=Monotype|access-date=6 March 2016}}</ref>

===Gill Kayo===
[[File:Gill Sans Extra Bold Kayo (21630545464).jpg|thumb|left|Gill's drawings of Gill Kayo. Its working title "Sans Double Elefans" is visible at bottom left, and his "EG" signature at bottom right.]] 
In 1936, Gill and Monotype released Gill Kayo, an extremely bold sans-serif that took its name from "KO", or [[knockout]], implying its aggressive build. It has often been branded as Gill Sans Ultra Bold, even though many of its letters vary considerably from the original Gill Sans.<ref name="Gill Sans after Gill" /> Gill, who thought of the design as something of a joke, proposed naming it "Double Elefans".<ref name="Signature Typeface">{{cite web|title=Signature Typeface|url=http://www.eyemagazine.com/blog/post/signature-typeface|website=Eye|access-date=22 July 2015}}</ref><ref name="Yorke2000_elefans">{{cite book|first=Malcolm|last=Yorke|title=Eric Gill: Man of Flesh and Spirit|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OhopB-7hqUwC&pg=PA260|date=7 July 2000|publisher=Tauris Parke Paperbacks|isbn=978-1-86064-584-6|page=260}}</ref> Harling reviewed it as "dismal" and sarcastically commented that "typographical historians of 2000AD (which isn't, after all, so very far away) will find this odd outburst in Mr Gill's career, and will spend much time in attempting to track down this sad psychological state of his during 1936."<ref name="Kayo – also known as Gill Sans Ultra Bold">{{cite web|title=Kayo – also known as Gill Sans Ultra Bold|url=https://stoneletters.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/kayo-also-known-as-gill-sans-ultra-bold/|website=Stone Letters|access-date=5 November 2015|archive-date=22 March 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200322084941/https://stoneletters.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/kayo-also-known-as-gill-sans-ultra-bold/|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="The Penrose Annual: Review of Graphic Arts, Volume 39 (1937)">{{cite book|first1=Robert|last1=Harling|title=The Penrose Annual: Review of Graphic Arts, Volume 39 (1937)|date=1937|publisher=Lund Humphries|quote=Kayo [is] so fantastic as to take us immediately back to the dark ages of so much of nineteenth-century display typography. Kayo is a dismal type. In the hands of a skilful typographer it could probably be made to do a good-hearted, gargantuan job very well. In the hands of jobbing printers scattered throughout England it will be just plain murder. The type was originally named Double Elefans, which had a very pleasant touch of the lampoon about it. The new name, Kayo, is too horribly truthful.}}</ref><ref name="Robert Harling: A Note">{{cite web|title=Robert Harling: A Note|url=https://stoneletters.wordpress.com/2014/04/13/robert-harling-a-note/|website=Stone Letters|access-date=4 August 2017|archive-date=22 March 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200322084942/https://stoneletters.wordpress.com/2014/04/13/robert-harling-a-note/|url-status=dead}}</ref> Forty years later, he described it as "the most horrendous and blackguardly of these display exploitations".<ref name="The Letter Forms and Type Designs of Eric Gill 36-48" /> Work on the font began in 1932;<ref name="Gill Sans after Gill" /> some of the first drawings may have been prepared by Gill's son-in-law Denis Tegetmeier.<ref name="Sallie Morris lecture 2015" /> Gill Kayo made a return to popularity in graphic design during the 1970s and 1980s, when [[Letraset]] added a condensed weight.<ref name="Fonts in Use: Gill Kayo">{{cite web|title=Fonts in Use: Gill Kayo|url=http://fontsinuse.com/search?terms=Gill+Kayo|website=Fonts in Use|access-date=11 November 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Devroye|first1=Luc|author-link=Luc Devroye|title=Kayo Poster|url=http://luc.devroye.org/EricGill--Kayo-1936.jpg|website=Luc Devroye|publisher=Monotype (original design)|access-date=2 January 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Pitt|first1=John|title=Kayo – also known as Gill Sans Ultra Bold|url=http://stoneletters.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/kayo-also-known-as-gill-sans-ultra-bold/|website=Stone Letters|access-date=2 January 2015|archive-date=22 March 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200322084941/https://stoneletters.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/kayo-also-known-as-gill-sans-ultra-bold/|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Coles|first1=Stephen|title=Gill Kayo|url=http://fontsinuse.com/typefaces/7273/gill-kayo|website=Fonts in Use|access-date=2 January 2015}}</ref>

The boldest weights of Gill Sans, including Kayo, have been particularly criticised for design issues such as the eccentric design of the dots on the "i" and "j", and for their extreme boldness<ref name=Archer /><ref name="Calligraphic tendencies in the development of sanserif types in the twentieth century" /> (Gill Sans' standard weight is, as already noted, already quite bold by modern standards).<ref name="Archer">{{cite web|last=Archer|first=Ben |url=http://www.typotheque.com/articles/re-evaluation_of_gill_sans |title=Eric Gill got it wrong; a re-evaluation of Gill Sans |website=Typotheque|date=11 March 2007 |access-date=7 January 2011}}</ref><ref name="Eric Gill, man of flesh and spirit">{{cite book|last1=Yorke|first1=Malcolm|title=Eric Gill, man of flesh and spirit|date=2000|publisher=Tauris Parke Paperbacks|location=London|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OhopB-7hqUwC&pg=PA258|isbn=978-1-86064-584-6|pages=258–261}}</ref> Gill argued in his ''Essay on Typography'' that the nineteenth-century tendency to make sans-serif typefaces attention-grabbingly bold was self-defeating, since the result was compromised legibility.<ref name="EoT weight">{{cite book|last1=Gill|first1=Eric|title=An essay on typography|date=2007|publisher=David R. Godine|location=Boston|isbn=978-0-87923-950-3|pages=40–47|chapter=2: Lettering|quote=Mere weight and heaviness of letter ceases to be effective in assisting the comprehension of the reader when every poster plays the same shouting game&nbsp;... a return to mere legibility seems desirable even if the effect be less striking.}}</ref> In the closing paragraph, he ruefully noted his contribution to the genre: <blockquote>There are now about as many different varieties of letters as there are different kinds of fools. I myself am responsible for designing five different sorts of sans-serif letters – each one thicker and fatter than the last because each advertisement has to try and shout down its neighbours.</blockquote>
{{clear}}

===Alternative characters===
[[File:Gill Sans Nova alternates.png|thumb|Alternative characters in Gill Sans Nova, most or all based on those offered in the metal type era<ref name="Specimen Book of Monotype Printing Types" />]]

Monotype developed a set of [[Font#Character variants|alternative characters]] for Gill Sans to cater to differing tastes and national printing styles of different countries. These include Futura-inspired designs of "N", "M", "R", "a", "g", "t" and others, a four-terminal "W" in the French renaissance style, a tighter "R", a "Q" in the nineteenth-century style with a tail that looped upwards (similar to that on [[Century Schoolbook|Century]] among others, and used by the LNER), oblique designs as opposed to the standard true italic, a more curving, true-italic "e", and several alternative numerals.<ref name="Gill Sans after Gill" /><ref name="Specimen Book of Monotype Printing Types">{{cite book|title=Specimen Book of Monotype Printing Types|date=6 January 2011 |publisher=Monotype|location=UK|url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/bogtrykkeren/5331070318|access-date=5 November 2015}}</ref><ref name="Preparing a Railway Timetable" /><ref name="Royal System FIU">{{cite web|last1=Coles|first1=Stephen|title=Royal System by Paul Cadovius logo and advertising|url=http://fontsinuse.com/uses/6735/royal-system-by-paul-cadovius-logo-and-advert|website=Fonts in Use|date=3 May 2014 |access-date=3 April 2016}}</ref><ref name="Gill Sans Alts Coles">{{cite web|last1=Coles|first1=Stephen|title=Gill Sans Alts 362, 262, 275|url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/stewf/25348920933|website=Flickr|date=21 March 2016 |access-date=3 April 2016}}</ref> In the standard designs for Gill Sans, the numeral "1", upper-case "i" and lower-case "L" are all a simple vertical line, so an alternative "1" with a serif was sold for number-heavy situations where this could otherwise cause confusion, such as on price-lists<ref name="Archer"/> (not all timetables used it: for example, the LNER used the simple version).<ref name="Preparing a Railway Timetable" /> Some early versions of Gill Sans also had features later abandoned, such as an unusual "7" matching the curve of the "9", a "5" pushing forwards, and a lower-case letter-height "0".<ref name="An Essay on Typography Monotype sans-serif" />

Gill was involved in the design of these alternatives, and Monotype's archive has preserved notes in which he rethought the geometric alternatives.<ref name="Gill Sans after Gill" /><ref name="Eric Gill Monotype Recorder 1958" /> With the increasing popularity of Futura, Gill Sans was not alone in being adapted; both Erbar and Dwiggins' Metro would undergo what historian [[Paul Shaw (design historian)|Paul Shaw]] has called a "Futura-ectomy" to conform to taste.<ref name="Typographic Sanity">{{cite web|last1=Shaw|first1=Paul|title=From the Archives: Typographic Sanity|url=http://www.paulshawletterdesign.com/2010/01/from-the-archives-no-9-typographic-sanity/|publisher=Paul Shaw Letter Design|access-date=26 December 2015}}</ref> After Gill's death, Monotype created versions for the [[Greek alphabet|Greek]] and [[Cyrillic script|Cyrillic]] alphabets.{{efn |Gerry Leonidas of the University of Reading, a leading expert on the history of Greek printing, has criticised Gill Sans' Greek characters, at least in versions up to 2002, as "seriously compromised" and unidiomatic, although he noted that it was nonetheless widely imitated around the 1950s.<ref name="A primer on Greek type design">{{cite web |last1=Leonidas |first1=Gerry |title=A primer on Greek type design |date=2013-12-01 |url=https://leonidas.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/LCT_greektypedesign.pdf|publisher=Gerry Leonidas |access-date=17 January 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220121052529/https://leonidas.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/LCT_greektypedesign.pdf |archive-date=21 January 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref>}} Monotype also added additional features not found in the metal type, notably [[text figures]] and small capitals.<ref name="Majoor My Type Design Philosophy" />

===Series and styles===
{{multiple image
 | width = 100
 | image1 = Title page (Warships To-day, 1936) (cropped).jpg
 | alt1 = A title page
 | image2 = 1939 Virina Koro (cropped).jpg
 | alt2 = A title page
 | footer = Two of the most obscure members of the Gill Sans family shown on 1930s books: left: Gill Sans Shadow Line, not available in an official digitisation until 2015, and right: Gill Sans Cameo Ruled, yet to be officially digitised.
}}
[[File:Gill Sans Bold mirrored.jpg|thumb|Metal type for Gill Sans Bold (mirrored image)]]
According to Rhatigan and other sources, Gill Sans had been released in the following styles by the end of the metal type period (not all sold at the same time):
*Gill Sans Titling (1928, series 231)
*Gill Sans (1930, series 262, sometimes called Gill Sans Medium)
*Gill Sans Bold (1930, series 275)
*Gill Sans Shadow Line (1931, series 290){{efn|Digitised in Gill Sans Nova as Gill Sans Nova Deco Regular.}}
*Gill Sans Shadow Titling (1931, series 304){{efn|Digitised as Gill Sans Shadowed and Gill Sans Nova Shadowed Outline. Capitals-only, as a titling face.<ref name="Gill Sans Shadowed FIU">{{cite web|title=Gill Sans Shadowed|url=https://fontsinuse.com/typefaces/39911/gill-sans-shadowed|website=Fonts in Use|access-date=26 December 2017}}</ref> Similar to Hans Bohn's Orplid face of a few years earlier.<ref name="Orplid FIU">{{cite web|title=Orplid|url=https://fontsinuse.com/typefaces/39498/orplid|website=Fonts in Use|access-date=26 December 2017}}</ref>}}
*Gill Sans Bold Titling (1931, series 317)
*Gill Sans Extra Bold (1931, series 321)
*Gill Sans Light (1931, series 362){{efn|Sometimes sold as Gill Sans Extra Light.<ref name="Gill Sans Extra Light Series 362">{{cite web|last1=Grießhammer|first1=Frank|title=Gill Sans Extra Light Series 362|url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/frankrolf/22826471414/|website=Flickr|date=8 November 2015 |access-date=26 December 2017}}</ref>}}
*Gill Sans Shadow (1932, series 338){{efn|Could be combined with Gill Sans Regular printed in a different colour to achieve a shadowed effect.<ref name="Gill Sans Colour Series 338">{{cite web|last1=Grießhammer|first1=Frank|title=Gill Sans Colour Series 338|url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/frankrolf/23159022060/|website=Flickr|date=8 November 2015 |access-date=26 December 2017}}</ref> By the late metal type period sold as Gill Sans Shadow No. 3, as the heaviest shadowed weight, despite being cut first.<ref name="Versatile Gill Family" />}}
*Gill Sans Bold Condensed (1932, series 343)
*Gill Sans 5pt (1932, series 349, sometimes called Gill Sans No. 2)<ref name="Versatile Gill Family">{{cite web|last1=Hunt|first1=Paul D.|title=The Versatile Gill Family of Type Faces|url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/pauldhunt/1601081788/|website=Flickr|date=17 October 2007 |access-date=26 December 2017}}</ref>
*Gill Sans Bold 5pt (1932, series 350, sometimes called Bold No. 2)<ref name="Versatile Gill Family" />
*Gill Sans Poster (1932, series 353)
*Gill Sans Bold Condensed Titling (1933, series 373)
*Gill Sans Cameo (1934, series 233)
*Gill Sans Cameo Ruled (1935, series 299)
*Gill Sans Shadow No. 1 (1936, series 406){{efn|The lightest Gill Sans Shadow weight, digitised as Gill Sans Light Shadowed and Gill Sans Nova Shadowed Light.<ref name="Gill Sans Light Shadowed FIU">{{cite web|title=Gill Sans Light Shadowed|url=https://fontsinuse.com/typefaces/4962/gill-sans-light-shadowed|website=Fonts in Use|access-date=26 December 2017}}</ref>}}
*Gill Sans Shadow No. 2 (1936, series 408){{efn|A slightly bolder shadowed weight.<ref name="Gill Sans Light Shadowed FIU" />}}
*Gill Sans Ultra Bold (1936, series 442)
*Gill Sans Bold Extra Condensed (1937, series 468)
*Gill Sans Condensed (1937, series 485, sometimes called Medium Condensed)<ref name="Gill Sans after Gill" />
*Gill Sans Bold No. 3 (1937, series 575)
*Gill Sans Bold Condensed Titling (1939, series 525)
*Gill Sans Extra Bold Titling (1939, series 526)
*Gill Sans Light 5pt (1958, series 662, sometimes called Light No. 2)<ref name="Versatile Gill Family" />
Titling series were capitals-only.

===Phototypesetting===
Monotype offered Gill Sans on film in the [[phototypesetting]] period. The fonts released in 1961 included Light 362, Series 262, Bold 275, Extra Bold 321, Condensed 343, all of which were released in film matrix sets "A" (6–7 points) and "B" (8–22, 24 points).<ref name="Gill Sans after Gill" /><ref name=Monophoto>{{cite journal|title=The design of faces for 'Monophoto' film matrices|journal=Monotype Recorder|date=1961|volume=42|issue=2|pages=15–23|url=http://www.metaltype.co.uk/downloads/mr/mr_42_2.pdf|access-date=3 January 2016|archive-date=5 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305112341/http://www.metaltype.co.uk/downloads/mr/mr_42_2.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>

===Infant and rounded versions===
Monotype created an [[Schoolbook characters|infant version]] of Gill Sans using single-storey "a" and "g", and other more distinguishable characters, such as a rounded "y", seriffed "1" and lower-case "L" with a turn at the bottom.<ref name="Rhatigan lecture 2015" /><ref name="Gill Sans Infant">{{cite web|title=Gill Sans Infant|url=http://www.fonts.com/font/monotype/gill-sans/infant|website=Fonts.com|publisher=Monotype|access-date=1 May 2016|archive-date=28 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171028042915/https://www.fonts.com/font/monotype/gill-sans/infant|url-status=dead}}</ref> Infant designs of fonts are often used in education and toys, as the letters, being based on handwriting, are thought to be more recognisable to children, and are often produced to supplement popular families such as Gill Sans, Akzidenz-Grotesk and [[Bembo]].<ref name="Serifs, sans serifs and infant characters in children's reading books">{{cite journal|last1=Walker|first1=Sue|last2=Reynolds|first2=Linda|title=Serifs, sans serifs and infant characters in children's reading books|journal=Information Design Journal|date=1 January 2003|volume=11|issue=3|pages=106–122|doi=10.1075/idj.11.2.04wal}}</ref><ref name="Akzidenz Grotesk Schoolbook">{{cite web|title=Akzidenz Grotesk Schoolbook|url=http://akzidenz-grotesk.com/font/ag-schoolbook/bq/|publisher=Berthold|access-date=1 May 2016|archive-date=6 August 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180806180257/https://akzidenz-grotesk.com/font/ag-schoolbook/bq/|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Bembo">{{cite web|title=Bembo Infant|url=https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/bembo/|website=MyFonts|access-date=1 May 2016}}</ref> Monotype also created a version with rounded stroke ends for [[John Lewis (department store)|John Lewis]] for use on toys.<ref name="John Lewis Toys">{{cite web|last1=Coles|first1=Stephen|last2=Rhatigan|first2=Daniel|title=John Lewis Toys|url=http://fontsinuse.com/uses/5274/john-lewis-toys|website=Fonts in Use|date=25 November 2013 |access-date=1 May 2016}}</ref>
{{clear}}

==Digital releases==
[[File:Gill Sans comparison.png|thumb|A [[Penguin Books]] paperback from 1949 compared to digital Gill Sans semi-bold, showing subtle differences in weight and spacing]]
The digital releases of Gill Sans fall into several main phases: releases before 2005 (which includes most bundled "system" versions of Gill Sans), the 2005 Pro edition, and the 2015 Nova release which adds many alternative characters and is in part included with [[Windows 10]].<ref name="Rhatigan lecture 2015" /> In general characteristics for common weights, the designs are similar, but there are some changes: for example, in the book weight, the 2005 release used circular ij dots, but the 2015 release uses square designs and simplifies some ligatures.<ref name="Rhatigan lecture 2015" /><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.fonts.com/FindFonts/RecentReleases/2005/GillSansPro.htm |title=Gill Sans Pro |publisher=Fonts.com |access-date=7 January 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110303230134/http://www.fonts.com/FindFonts/RecentReleases/2005/GillSansPro.htm |archive-date=3 March 2011}}</ref><ref name="Shaw Nova">{{cite web|last1=Shaw|first1=Paul|title=Nova: a new Gill Sans for the DIY era|url=http://designobserver.com/feature/nova/39193/|website=[[Design Observer]]|date=10 February 2016 |access-date=11 February 2016}}</ref> Digital Gill Sans also gained character sets not present in the metal type, including text figures and [[small capitals]].<ref name="Majoor My Type Design Philosophy" />

Like all metal type revivals, the digital revival of Gill Sans has raised several decisions of interpretation, such as the issue of how to compensate for the ink spread that would have been seen in print at small sizes more than larger. As a result, printed Gill Sans and its digital facsimile may not always match. The digital release of Gill Sans, like many Monotype digitisations, has been criticised, in particular for excessively tight letter-spacing and lack of [[optical size]]s: with only one design released that has to be used at any text size, it cannot replicate the subtlety of design and spacing of the metal type, for which every size was drawn differently. Different font sizes varied in the hot metal era, as is normal for metal type, with wider spacing and other detail changes at smaller text sizes; other major sans-serif families, such as Futura and Akzidenz-Grotesk, are similar.<ref name=MicroPlus>{{cite web|last1=Frere-Jones|first1=Tobias|author-link=Tobias Frere-Jones|title=MicroPlus|url=https://frerejones.com/blog/introducing-microplus|publisher=Frere-Jones Type|quote=[On adapting metal type designs to smaller sizes]: It was a kind of visual triage, where the essential features are defended and the less critical details are discarded. Each foundry had its own policy about how much to change and when, but the trends were always the same: lower contrast, looser spacing, simpler features.|access-date=1 December 2015}}</ref><ref name="Gerstner English" /> In the [[cold type|phototype]] period, Monotype continued to offer two or three sizes of master, but this subtlety was lost in the transfer to digital.<ref name="Rhatigan lecture 2015" /><ref name="Gill Sans after Gill" /><ref name="Monophoto" /> To replicate this, it is necessary to make manual adjustment to spacing to compensate for size changes, such as expanding the spacing and increasing the weight used at smaller sizes.<ref name="Sowersby">{{cite web|last1=Sowersby|first1=Kris|title=Playing Favourites, Part Two.|date=16 January 2013 |url=https://klim.co.nz/blog/playing-favourites-part-two/|publisher=Klim Type Foundry|access-date=16 February 2016|quote=I cannot stand any of the digital versions, they have something fundamentally wrong with them that I just can't put my finger on.}}</ref>{{efn|Monotype's early digital releases of their classic typefaces, some unlike Gill Sans never fully revisited, were widely seen as erratic: [[Jonathan Hoefler]] commented sarcastically that "Gill Sans retired the trophy for 'Worst Digital Adaptation of an Okay Foundry Type', with [[Bembo]] & [[Centaur (typeface)|Centaur]] close behind".<ref name="Hoefler">{{cite tweet|user=HoeflerCo|author=Hoefler&Co.|number=26852804026966016|date=17 January 2011|title=@pauldhunt Gill Sans retired the trophy for "Worst Digital Adaptation of an Okay Foundry Type," with Bembo & Centaur close behind.}}</ref>}}

Former [[ATypI]] president John Berry said of Gill Sans' modernised spacing that "both the regular weight and especially the light weight look much better when they're tracked loose".<ref name="dot-font">{{cite web|last1=Berry|first1=John D.|title=Cooling Magma|url=http://creativepro.com/dot-font-cooling-magma/|website=Creative Pro|date=24 January 2005 |access-date=22 July 2015}}</ref> In contrast, [[Walter Tracy]] wrote in 1986 that he preferred the later spacing: "the metal version&nbsp;... was spaced, I suspect, as if it were a serif face".<ref name="Tracy2003 spacing">{{cite book|first=Walter|last=Tracy|title=Letters of Credit: A View of Type Design|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y8NssjbqNcsC&pg=PA71|date=January 2003|publisher=D. R. Godine|isbn=978-1-56792-240-0|page=71}}</ref>

===Gill Sans Nova (2015)===
As of 2019, Monotype's current digitisation of Gill Sans is Gill Sans Nova, by George Ryan.<ref name="Shaw2017">{{cite book|author-link=Paul Shaw (design historian)|first=Paul|last=Shaw|title=Revival Type: Digital Typefaces Inspired by the Past|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n7e0DgAAQBAJ&pg=PA227|year=2017|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-21929-6|pages=226–9}}</ref> It adds many additional variants, including some of the previously undigitised [[Inline font|inline]] versions, [[stylistic alternates]] and an ultra-light weight which had been drawn for ''[[Grazia]]''.<ref name="Rhatigan lecture 2015" /><ref name="Gill Sans Nova">{{cite web|title=Gill Sans Nova|url=http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/gill-sans-nova/|publisher=Monotype|access-date=4 November 2015}}</ref><ref name="George Ryan: The Gill Sans two-step">{{cite web|last1=Walters|first1=John|title=George Ryan: The Gill Sans two-step|url=http://www.monotype.com/expertise/articles/george-ryan-the-gill-sans-two-step/|website=Monotype|access-date=25 April 2016|archive-date=29 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160829130155/http://www.monotype.com/expertise/articles/george-ryan-the-gill-sans-two-step|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Nova review typographica">{{cite web|last1=Hallmundur|first1=Aegir|title=Eric Gill Series|url=http://typographica.org/typeface-reviews/eric-gill-series/|website=Typographica|access-date=10 June 2016}}</ref> The fonts differ from Gill Sans MT ("MT" stands for Monotype) in their adoption of the hooked "1" as default, while the regular weight is renamed "Medium". Monotype celebrated the release with a London exhibition on Gill's work, as they had previously done for the general release of Gill's serif design Joanna in 1958.<ref name="Creative Review Gill Sans Nova">{{cite web|last1=Steven|first1=Rachael|title=Monotype releases new Eric Gill collection|url=http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2015/november/monotype-releases-new-eric-gill-collection/|publisher=Creative Review|access-date=5 November 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151123031010/http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2015/november/monotype-releases-new-eric-gill-collection/|archive-date=23 November 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="How Monotype Remastered Eric Gill for the 21st Century">{{cite web|last1=Brownlee|first1=John|title=How Monotype Remastered Eric Gill for the 21st Century|url=http://www.fastcodesign.com/3053029/how-monotype-remastered-eric-gill-for-the-21st-century|website=Fast Co Design|date=4 November 2015 |access-date=5 November 2015}}</ref><ref name="Why we're not joining in the celebration of typographer Eric Gill">{{cite web|last1=Bennett|first1=Neil|title=Why we're not joining in the celebration of typographer Eric Gill|url=http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/news/illustration/eric-gill/|website=Digital Arts|access-date=5 November 2015}}</ref><ref name="Monotype remasters classic Gill typeface for digital age">{{cite web|title=Monotype remasters classic Gill typeface for digital age|url=http://www.moreaboutadvertising.com/2015/11/monotype-remasters-classic-gill-typeface-for-digital-age/|website=More About Advertising|date=5 November 2015 |access-date=5 November 2015}}</ref> One addition was italic swash caps, which had been considered by Gill but never released.<ref name="Rhatigan lecture 2015" /><ref name="Bergmann Nenn mich Musik">{{cite web |last1=Bergmann |first1=Christoph |title=Nenn mich Musik – The Düsseldorf Düsterboys |url=https://fontsinuse.com/uses/30050/nenn-mich-musik-the-dusseldorf-dusterboys |website=Fonts in Use |date=21 December 2019 |access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>

The family includes 43 fonts, including 33 text fonts in nine weights and three widths; six inline fonts in five weights and two widths (one condensed); two shadowed fonts in two weights and one width; one shadowed outline font, and one deco font. The basic set of Regular, Light and Bold weights is bundled with [[Windows 10]] in the user-downloadable "Pan-European Supplemental Fonts" package.<ref name="New fonts in Windows 10">{{cite web|last1=Ding|first1=Frederick|title=New fonts in Windows 10|url=http://www.frederickding.com/posts/2015/07/new-fonts-in-windows-10-082445/|website=Frederick's Timelog|date=8 July 2015 |access-date=26 December 2017}}</ref>

===Miscellaneous===
Peter Wiegel digitized a modified variant of Gill Sans Bold Condensed, known as TGL 12096-1, which was used on road signs in former East Germany until 1990.<ref name="TGL 12096-1">
{{cite web
 | last1= Wiegel
 | first1= Peter
 | title= TGL 12096-1
 | publisher= Peter Wiegel
 | url= https://www.peter-wiegel.de/TGL_12096.html
 | access-date= 20 January 2024
}}
</ref>
{{clear}}

==Usage==
[[File:LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard Nameplate.jpg|thumb|Gill Sans on the nameplate of the [[London & North Eastern Railway|LNER]] locomotive [[LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard|''Mallard'']]<ref name="Gill Sans UEA" />]]

First unveiled in a single uppercase weight in 1928, Gill Sans achieved national prominence when it was chosen the following year to become the standard typeface of the LNER railway company, soon appearing on every facet of the company's identity, from metal locomotive nameplates and hand-painted station signage to printed restaurant car menus, timetables and advertising posters.<ref name="Preparing a railway timetable">{{cite journal|last1=Robinson|first1=Edwin|title=Preparing a railway timetable|journal=Monotype Recorder|date=1939|volume=38|issue=1|pages=14–17, 24–26|url=http://www.metaltype.co.uk/downloads/mr/mr_38_1.pdf|access-date=16 September 2015|archive-date=5 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305022211/http://www.metaltype.co.uk/downloads/mr/mr_38_1.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Gill Sans UEA">{{cite web|last1=Skelton|first1=Stephen|title=Gill Sans|url=http://www.newwriting.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Skelton-Stephen-Gill-Sans.pdf|website=New Writing|publisher=University of East Anglia|access-date=3 May 2015}}</ref><ref name="ColeDurack1992">{{cite book|first1=Beverley|last1=Cole|first2=Richard|last2=Durack|title=Railway Posters 1923–1947: From the Collection of the National Railway Museum, York|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HkM6rOU7ETAC&pg=PA15|year=1992|publisher=Laurence King Publishing|isbn=978-1-85669-014-0|pages=15–23}}</ref>
The LNER promoted their rebranding by offering Gill (who was fascinated with railway engines) a footplate ride on the ''[[Flying Scotsman (train)|Flying Scotsman]]'' express service; Gill also painted a signboard for it in the style of Gill Sans, which survives in the collection of the [[St Bride Library]].<ref name="Mosley lecture 2015" /><ref name="Preparing a Railway Timetable">{{cite journal|last1=Robinson|first1=Edwin|title=Preparing a Railway Timetable|journal=Monotype Recorder|date=1939|volume=38|issue=1|page=24|url=http://www.metaltype.co.uk/downloads/mr/mr_38_1.pdf|access-date=12 July 2015|archive-date=5 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305022211/http://www.metaltype.co.uk/downloads/mr/mr_38_1.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=East Coast Joys: Tom Purvis and the LNER|journal=Journal of Design History|volume=8|issue=4|pages=291–311|year=1995|jstor = 1316023|last1 = Hewitt|first1 = John|doi=10.1093/jdh/8.4.291}}</ref>

[[File:1952 Jersey holiday events brochure.jpg|thumb|right|1952 Jersey holiday events brochure, typical of the design style of the period]]

In 1949, the [[Railway Executive]] decided on standard types of signs to be used at all stations. Lettering was to use the Gill Sans typeface on a background of the regional colour.<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Railway Station Signs. Standard Lettering  |url=http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001672/19490520/097/0010 |newspaper=Warminster & Westbury journal, and Wilts County Advertiser |location=England |date=20 May 1949 |access-date=13 February 2017 |via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription  }}</ref> Gill Sans was also used in much of its printed output, very often in capitals-only settings for signage. Specially drawn variations were developed by the Railway Executive (part of the [[British Transport Commission]]) for signs in its manual for the use of signpainters painting large signs by hand. Other users included [[Penguin Books]]' iconic paperback jacket designs from 1935, and British official mapping agency [[Ordnance Survey]].<ref name="Ordnance Survey">{{cite web|last1=Powell|first1=Katie|title=Ordnance Survey: not just paper maps|url=https://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2015/february/ordnance-survey-not-just-paper-maps/|website=[[Creative Review]]|access-date=21 December 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222142643/https://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2015/february/ordnance-survey-not-just-paper-maps/|archive-date=22 December 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref> It was also used by [[London Transport (brand)|London Transport]] for documents that could not be practically set in Johnston.<ref name="Eiichi Kono on New Johnston">{{cite web|title=Eiichi Kono on New Johnston|url=http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2013/february/eiichi-kono-on-new-johnston/|website=Creative Review|access-date=25 April 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160616080040/http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2013/february/eiichi-kono-on-new-johnston/|archive-date=16 June 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref> Printing historian Paul Shaw has described it as a key element of the "Modernist classical" style from the 1930s to the 1950s, which promoted clean, spare design, often with all-capitals and centred setting of headings.<ref name="The Univers of Helvetica">{{cite web|last1=Shaw|first1=Paul|title=The Univers of Helvetica: A Tale of Two Typefaces|url=http://www.printmag.com/typography/univers-of-helvetica-history/|website=[[Print (magazine)|Print]]|access-date=26 June 2016}}</ref>

Gill Sans remains popular, although a trend away from it took place around the 1950s and 1960s towards [[grotesque (typeface)|grotesque]] and [[neo-grotesque]] typefaces, under the influence of continental and American design.<ref name="Margolin1989">{{cite book|first=Victor|last=Margolin|title=Design Discourse: History, Theory, Criticism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OB5pPtGQuZgC&pg=PA136|date=15 September 1989|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-50514-5|page=136}}</ref><ref name="Tracy2003 GillSansdecline">{{cite book|first=Walter|last=Tracy|title=Letters of Credit: A View of Type Design|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y8NssjbqNcsC&pg=PA39|date=January 2003|publisher=D.R. Godine|isbn=978-1-56792-240-0|page=39}}</ref> Typefaces that became popular around this time included original early "grotesque" sans-serifs, as well as new and more elegant designs in the same style, such as Helvetica and Univers. Mosley has commented that "orders unexpectedly revived" for the old Monotype Grotesque design in 1960: "[it] represents, even more evocatively than Univers, the fresh revolutionary breeze that began to blow through typography in the early sixties."<ref name="The Nymph and the Grot p9" /> In 2007, he added that "its rather clumsy design seems to have been one of the chief attractions to iconoclastic designers tired of the&nbsp;... prettiness of Gill Sans".<ref name="The Nymph and the Grot, an update" /><ref name="The Nymph and the Grot p9">{{cite book|last1=Mosley|first1=James|title=The Nymph and the Grot|date=1999|publisher=European Friends of the St Bride Printing Library|location=London|page=9}}</ref> As an example of this trend, [[Jock Kinneir]] and [[Margaret Calvert]]'s 1965 corporate rebranding of BR as [[British Rail]] introduced Helvetica and Univers for printed matter, and the custom but very similar [[Rail Alphabet]] for signage, and abandoned the classical, [[all caps]] signage style with which Gill Sans is often associated. Kinneir and Calvert's [[Transport (typeface)|road signage redesign]] used a similar approach.<ref name="Christopher2012">{{cite book|first=Elizabeth|last=Christopher|title=Communication Across Cultures|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BOEcBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA65|date=3 September 2012|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=978-1-137-01097-1|page=65}}{{Dead link|date=December 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref name="Double Arrow">{{cite web|last1=Job|first1=Nick|title=Double Arrow blog|url=http://www.doublearrow.co.uk/home.htm|website=Double Arrow|access-date=21 December 2015}}</ref><ref name="New Transport">{{cite web|last1=Calvert|first1=Margaret|author-link1=Margaret Calvert|title=New Transport|url=http://www.newtransport.co.uk/|website=A2-TYPE|access-date=2 May 2016|archive-date=11 May 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150511000343/http://www.newtransport.co.uk/|url-status=dead}}</ref> Linotype and its designer [[Hermann Zapf]], who had begun development on a planned competitor to Gill Sans in 1955, first considered redrawing some letters to make it more like these faces before abandoning the design project (now named "Magnus") around 1962–63.<ref name="Weichselbaumer2015" /><ref name="Hermann Zapf: ein Arbeitsbericht">{{cite book|title=Hermann Zapf: ein Arbeitsbericht|date=1984|publisher=Maximilian-Gesellschaft|location=Hamburg|isbn=978-3-921743-28-7|page=74}}</ref>

An additional development which reduced Gill Sans' dominance was the arrival of phototypesetting, which allowed typefaces to be printed from photographs on film and (especially in display use; hot metal continued for some body text setting for longer) massively increased the range of typefaces that could cheaply be used. [[Dry transfer]]s like [[Letraset]] had a similar effect for smaller projects; their sans-serif [[Compacta (typeface)|Compacta]] and [[Stephenson Blake]]'s [[Impact (typeface)|Impact]] exemplified the design trends of the period by choosing dense, industrial designs.<ref name="ITC Compacta">{{cite web|title=ITC Compacta|url=http://www.fonts.com/font/itc/compacta|website=fonts.com|access-date=23 August 2015}}</ref><ref name="Graphic Journey Schmalfette: Tall, dark and handsome">{{cite web|last1=Dempsey|first1=Mike|title=Schmalfette: Tall, dark and handsome|url=http://mikedempsey.typepad.com/graphic_journey_blog/2013/04/schmalfette-tall-dark-and-handsome.html|website=Graphic Journey|access-date=22 August 2015}}</ref><ref name="Frederick Lambert: Graphic Design Britain">{{cite web|last1=Dempsey|first1=Mike|title=Frederick Lambert: Graphic Design Britain|url=http://mikedempsey.typepad.com/graphic_journey_blog/2010/12/fredrick-lambert.html|website=Design Journey|access-date=22 August 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Lee |first1=Geoffrey |title=Comments on Typophile thread |url=http://typophile.com/node/7921 |website=Typophile (archived) |access-date=27 October 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050826182110/http://typophile.com/node/7921 |archive-date=26 August 2005 }}</ref> Of the period from the 1930s to 1950s, when he was growing up, James Mosley would later write: <blockquote>The Monotype classics dominated the typographical landscape&nbsp;... in Britain, at any rate, they were so ubiquitous that, while their excellent quality was undeniable, it was possible to be bored by them and to begin to rebel against the bland good taste that they represented. In fact we were already aware by 1960 that they might not be around to bore us for too long. The death of metal type&nbsp;... seemed at last to be happening.<ref name="Typographically Speaking: The Art of Matthew Carter">{{cite book|last1=Mosley|first1=James|chapter=Reviving the Classics: Matthew Carter and the Interpretation of Historical Models|editor1-last=Mosley|editor1-first=James|editor2-last=Re|editor2-first=Margaret|editor3-last=Drucker|editor3-first=Johanna|editor4-last=Carter|editor4-first=Matthew|title=Typographically Speaking: The Art of Matthew Carter|date=2003|publisher=Princeton Architectural Press|isbn=978-1-56898-427-8|pages=31–34|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WqXd_w4S4SsC&pg=PA32|access-date=30 January 2016}}</ref>{{efn|A major part of Mosley's career in the period, indeed, was accumulating for [[St Bride Library]] metal type equipment from companies disposing of it.<ref name="James Mosley: a life in objects">{{cite web|last1=Barnes|first1=Paul|title=James Mosley: a life in objects|url=http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/james-mosley-a-life-in-objects|website=Eye magazine|access-date=11 December 2015}}</ref>}}</blockquote>

While it was extremely popular in Britain, and to a lesser extent in European printing, Gill Sans did not achieve popularity with American printers in the hot metal era, with most preferring [[gothic (typeface)|gothic typefaces]] like [[Franklin Gothic]], as well as geometric designs like Futura and Monotype's own [[Twentieth Century (typeface)|Twentieth Century]].<ref name="Tracy2003 general" />{{efn|Monotype's competitor [[Mergenthaler Linotype Company|Linotype]] was dominant in the American market at the time, which may have been a factor in this.<ref name="Calligraphic tendencies in the development of sanserif types in the twentieth century" /><ref name="Mosley lecture 2015" /> The shadow-effect capitals-only fonts appear in some US specimen brochures that otherwise excluded it in this period,<ref name="Barco Type Founders">{{cite book|title=Barco Type Founders specimen brochure|publisher=Barco Type Founders|location=Northlake, IL|pages=24, 31|url=https://archive.org/details/BarcoGreenSpecimen|access-date=19 August 2015}}</ref><ref name="Acme Type Specimen and Revised Price List (Catalog No. 6)">{{cite book|title=Acme Type Specimen and Revised Price List (Catalog No. 6)|date=1947|publisher=Acme Type Foundry|location=Chicago|page=[https://archive.org/details/AcmeTypeFoundrySpecimen06_1947/page/n67 41]|edition=6|url=https://archive.org/details/AcmeTypeFoundrySpecimen06_1947|access-date=19 August 2015}}</ref> in particular the Cameo Ruled weight, which was sold by Baltimore Type Founders in its Airport family, otherwise a clone of Futura.<ref name="Baltimore Type Foundry Devroye">{{cite web|last1=Devroye|first1=Luc|title=Baltimore Type Foundry|url=http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-39563.html|website=Type Design Information|access-date=4 August 2017}}</ref>}} Gill Sans thus particularly achieved worldwide popularity after the close of the metal type era and in the phototypesetting and digital era, when it became a system font on [[Apple Mac|Macintosh]] computers and [[Microsoft Office]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/font.aspx?FMID=979 |title=Gill Sans MT in Microsoft products |publisher=Microsoft.com |access-date=7 January 2011}}</ref> One use of Gill's work in the United States in this period, however, was a custom wordmark and logo made by Gill in 1930 for [[Poetry (magazine)|''Poetry'' magazine]], based on Gill Sans. Its editor [[Harriet Monroe]] had seen Gill's work in London.<ref name="100 Years of Poetry: Designing the Magazine, 1912–2012">{{cite web|last1=Gehl|first1=Paul|title=100 Years of Poetry: Designing the Magazine, 1912–2012|url=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/articles/detail/69878|website=[[Poetry (magazine)|Poetry]]|publisher=Poetry Magazine Foundation|access-date=22 April 2016}}</ref>

[[File:BBC Broadcasting House, Belfast, October 2010 (02) (cropped).JPG|thumb|Signage at the [[BBC Northern Ireland|BBC]] [[Broadcasting House, Belfast]], using Gill Sans. The BBC logo shown here was used from 1997 until 2021.]]
In 1997, the [[BBC]] adopted the typeface as its corporate typeface for many but not all purposes, including on its [[Logo of the BBC|logo]].<ref name="BBC Commissioning: Credits and branding">{{cite web|title=BBC Commissioning: Credits and branding|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/tv/production/articles/credits-branding-trademarks|publisher=BBC|access-date=9 May 2016}}</ref> Explaining the change, designer [[Martin Lambie-Nairn]] said that "by choosing a typeface that has stood the test of time, we avoid the trap of going down a modish route that might look outdated in several years' time".<ref name="TV Ark">{{cite web|last1=Walker|first1=Hayden|title=BBC Logo: 1997–present|url=http://www2.tv-ark.org.uk/bbc/corporate/1997.html|website=TV Ark|access-date=26 December 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151227153058/http://www2.tv-ark.org.uk/bbc/corporate/1997.html|archive-date=27 December 2015|url-status=usurped}}</ref> This was not Gill's only association with the BBC, as he had designed sculptures and other artwork that are on display at the broadcaster's London headquarters, [[Broadcasting House]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Williams |first=Megan |date=2022-01-24 |title=Reckoning with Eric Gill's legacy |url=https://www.creativereview.co.uk/eric-gill-legacy/ |access-date=2022-03-04 |website=Creative Review |language=en-UK}}</ref> In 2017, the BBC began to phase out Gill Sans in favour of "Reith" (named after its first general manager [[John Reith, 1st Baron Reith|John Reith]]), a proprietary corporate font family designed to be more legible on [[Mobile device|mobile devices]], and did not require licensing for continued use.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Liptak |first=Andrew |date=2017-08-06 |title=The BBC is rolling out a new font designed for mobile screens |url=https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/6/16103904/bbc-reith-new-font-optimized-mobile-screens |access-date=2022-05-26 |website=The Verge |language=en}}</ref> The font was adopted by the BBC's corporate logo in 2021.<ref name="BBCrebrand">{{Cite news |date=19 October 2021 |title=BBC reveals new logos in modern makeover|url= https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-58970323 |publisher=BBC News|access-date=20 October 2021}}</ref>
[[File:Mitsubishi NEXIEZ elevator COP.png|thumb|262x262px|Car station of a newer Mitsubishi elevator, using the Gill Sans typeface on the LCD display and the floor buttons (though the digital clock on the display uses [[Frutiger (typeface)|Frutiger]])]]
Elevators produced by [[Mitsubishi Electric]] since the early 2000s<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Matsuda |first1=Kazuko |last2=Miyawak |first2=Masayuki |date=September 2002 |title="Universal Design" in ELENESSA (Machine Room-Less) Elevators |url=https://www.advance.mitsubishielectric.com/advance/pdf/2002/vol99.pdf |journal=Mitsubishi Electric ADVANCE |volume=99 |pages=9–11}}</ref> used Gill Sans as the typeface for the buttons and LCD indicators.

Until 2022, the charity [[Save the Children]] featured Gill Sans in its logo and branding. Following increased publicity of designer Eric Gill's sexual abuse of his children and others, the charity rebranded, saying that it was "moving away from using the Gill Sans font."<ref name="thetimes">{{cite news|journal=The Times|url=https://www.thetimes.com/article/eric-gill-save-the-children-chiefs-stop-using-font-designed-by-paedophile-artist-spjpkd2hz|title=Eric Gill: Save the Children chiefs stop using font designed by paedophile artist|first=Jake |last=Kanter|date=2022-01-15|access-date=2025-02-19}}</ref>

==Similar fonts==
===Early competitors===
[[File:High voltage warning sign - British Railways Eastern Region (cropped).jpg|thumb|Lettering on an [[Eastern Region of British Railways]] sign. While the lettering is clearly based on Gill Sans, some letters such as the ''R'' are very different.]]

In 1930, the Sheffield type foundry [[Stephenson Blake]] released [[Granby (typeface)|Granby]], a commercial competitor influenced by Gill Sans, Johnston and Futura.<ref name="Questioning Gill Sans" /><ref name="Howes other typefaces">{{cite book|last1=Howes|first1=Justin|title=Johnston's Underground Type|date=2000|publisher=Capital Transport|location=Harrow Weald, Middlesex|isbn=978-1-85414-231-3|pages=73–78}}</ref><ref>{{cite book
  |first=Roy  |last=Millington
  |title=Stephenson Blake: The Last of the Old English Typefounders
  |publisher=Oak Knoll Press|pages=170–175
  |year=2002
  |isbn=978-1-58456-086-9
}}</ref> It was a large family with condensed and [[Inline font|inline styles]], and a diamond-dot design like Johnston. It also included a "Granby Elephant" weight influenced by Gill Kayo.<ref name="Granby Elephant RRF">{{cite web|last1=Jackaman|first1=Steve|first2=Ashley|last2=Muir|title=Granby Elephant RRF|url=http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/redrooster/granby-elephant-pro/|website=MyFonts|publisher=Red Rooster Fonts|access-date=15 February 2016}}</ref>

Another similar but more eccentric design was created by Johnston's student Harold Curwen for the use of his family company, the [[Curwen Press]] of [[Plaistow, Newham|Plaistow]]. Named "Curwen Sans" or "Curwen Modern", it has many similarities to Johnston as well, and was occasionally used by London Transport in work printed by the Curwen Press.<ref name="Typefaces in use at the Curwen Press, 1952">{{cite web|title=Typefaces in use at the Curwen Press, 1952|url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/36844288@N00/15610443584/|publisher=[[Curwen Press]]|date=1952|access-date=18 December 2015}}</ref><ref name="Curwen Modern">{{cite web|title=Curwen Modern|url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/36844288@N00/5327223021|website=Flickr|date=5 January 2011 |publisher=[[Curwen Press]]|access-date=19 December 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Curwen Sans type specimen|date=2012|publisher=An Endless Supply|url=http://old.anendlesssupply.co.uk/work/curwen-sans-type-specimen/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222163907/http://old.anendlesssupply.co.uk/work/curwen-sans-type-specimen/|url-status=dead|archive-date=2015-12-22|isbn=978-0-9570614-1-5}}</ref> Curwen described it as based on his time studying with Johnston in the 1900s, although it was not cut into metal until 1928, around the same time as Gill Sans was released, with a lower-case similar to that of Kabel.<ref name="Howes other typefaces" /> A digitisation by K-Type was released in 2018.<ref name="Reviving Curwen Sans">{{cite web |last1=Bates |first1=Keith |title=Reviving Curwen Sans |url=http://www.k-type.com/reviving-curwen-sans/ |publisher=K-Type |access-date=9 October 2018}}</ref><ref name="Curwen Sans K-Type">{{cite web |last1=Bates |first1=Keith |title=Curwen Sans |url=https://www.k-type.com/fonts/curwen-sans/ |publisher=K-Type |access-date=9 October 2018}}</ref>

Several intended Gill Sans competitors were developed during the period of its popularity, but ultimately did not see mass release. [[Jan Tschichold]], who would later make extensive use of Gill Sans while designing books for [[Penguin Books|Penguin]], created a similar design for an early [[phototypesetting]] machine, which was at the time seldom used but also since digitised.<ref name="Horn Uhertype">{{cite news|last1=Horn|first1=Frederick A.|title=Gutenberg on his Metal: c|url=http://magazines.iaddb.org/issue/CAI/1936-02-01/edition/null/page/42|access-date=12 August 2017|work=Art & Industry|date=1936|pages=42–3|archive-date=31 July 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190731164213/https://magazines.iaddb.org/issue/CAI/1936-02-01/edition/null/page/42|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Hollis|first1=Richard|title=Swiss graphic design: the origins and growth of an international style, 1920–1965|date=2006|publisher=Laurence King|location=London|isbn=978-1-85669-487-2|page=199|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7XO-LMDo4yQC&pg=PA199}}</ref><ref name="Tschichold Sans">{{cite web|title=Tschichold|url=http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/presencetypo/tschichold/|website=MyFonts|publisher=Presence Typo|access-date=8 November 2015}}</ref><ref name="Questioning Gill Sans" /> During the 1930s, Dutch type designer [[Jan van Krimpen]], also a friend of Morison's, designed Romulus, a superfamilywith serif and humanist sans-serif companion: the sans-serif, with a low x-height, never progressed beyond test proofs.<ref name="Tracy2003 general" /> As mentioned above, Linotype began work in 1955 on a Gill Sans competitor, intended to be named "Magnus".{{efn|The name "Britannia" was also considered, but was abandoned due to Stephenson Blake's pre-existing [[Britannic (typeface)|Britannic]] design.}} Designed by German type designer [[Hermann Zapf]] with input from British Linotype manager [[Walter Tracy]], the design was ultimately abandoned by 1963 due to lack of manufacturing capacity and changing tastes, although it too reached test proofs.<ref name="Calligraphic tendencies in the development of sanserif types in the twentieth century" /><ref name="Weichselbaumer2015">{{cite book|author=Nikolaus Julius Weichselbaumer|title=Der Typograph Hermann Zapf: Eine Werkbiographie|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f9VaCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT170|date=14 December 2015|publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG|isbn=978-3-11-041505-6|pages=170–3}}</ref>

[[File:Lowestoft Central sign straightened.jpg|thumb|Enamel sign at [[Lowestoft railway station|Lowestoft Central station]] in [[British Rail]]ways standard lettering. The right-hand side of the legs of the "R"s are straight rather than Gill's smooth curve.]]

Besides similar fonts, many signs and objects made in Britain during the period of Gill Sans' dominance, such as the ''[[Keep Calm and Carry On]]'' poster, received hand-painted or custom lettering similar to Gill Sans.<ref name="Bustillos">{{cite web|last1=Bustillos|first1=Maria|title=The Vicious Trademark Battle Over 'Keep Calm and Carry On'|url=http://www.theawl.com/2011/10/keep-calm-and-carry-on-trademark-fight|website=The Awl|access-date=15 February 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160301012125/http://www.theawl.com/2011/10/keep-calm-and-carry-on-trademark-fight|archive-date=1 March 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Hatherley">{{cite web|last1=Hatherley|first1=Owen|title=Keep Calm and Carry On – the sinister message behind the slogan that seduced the nation|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/08/keep-calm-and-carry-on-posters-austerity-ubiquity-sinister-implications|website=[[The Guardian]]|date=8 January 2016 |access-date=15 February 2016}}</ref> During the war, [[Fighter Command]] used a standard set of letters similar to it. [[Matthew Carter]], later a prominent font designer, recalled in 2005 that his mother cut [[linoleum]] block letters based on it for him to play with.<ref name="Howes fighter">{{cite book|last1=Howes|first1=Justin|title=Johnston's Underground Type|date=2000|publisher=Capital Transport|location=Harrow Weald, Middlesex|isbn=978-1-85414-231-3|pages=71–72}}</ref><ref name="Wilkinson">{{cite magazine|last1=Wilkinson|first1=Alex|title=Man of Letters|url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/12/05/man-of-letters-4|magazine=[[The New Yorker]]|date=28 November 2005 |access-date=15 February 2016|quote=Carter, his mother, and his younger brother were able to take little with them, and no toys that Carter remembers. To teach him to read, his mother cut an alphabet for him from linoleum. "Gill Sans", he says, "a popular typeface of the time".}}</ref> Another little-known follower was the NEN 3225 standard lettering, a project by the Dutch Standards Institute to create a set of standardised lettering for public use in the Netherlands, comprising a sans-serif similar to Gill Sans and a companion serif font drawn by [[Jan van Krimpen]]. The project was begun in 1944, but was not published until 1963, and ultimately did not become popular.<ref name="NEN 3225 Ovink">{{cite book|author1=G. Willem Ovink|title=Alphabet|date=1964|publisher=Kynoch Press|pages=123–130|chapter=NEN 3225: Dutch Standard Alphabets}}</ref><ref name="Middendorp2004">{{cite book|author=Jan Middendorp|title=Dutch Type|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sR9g5xPPJVQC&pg=PA298|year=2004|publisher=010 Publishers|isbn=978-90-6450-460-0|pages=298–9}}</ref>

===Later and digital-only designs===
The category of humanist sans-serif typefaces, which Gill Sans helped to define, saw great attention during the 1980s and 1990s, especially as a reaction against the overwhelming popularity of Helvetica and Univers in the 1960s and 1970s.<ref name="Questioning Gill Sans">{{cite web|last1=Coles|first1=Stephen|title=Questioning Gill Sans|url=http://typographica.org/2007/on-typography/questioning-gill-sans|website=Typographica|access-date=18 December 2015}}</ref><ref name="Kupferschmid Gill Sans Alternatives">{{cite web |last1=Kupferschmid |first1=Indra |title=Gill Sans Alternatives |url=http://www.alphabettes.org/alternatives-to-gill-sans/ |website=Alphabettes |date=9 November 2012 |access-date=23 February 2019}}</ref><ref name="Berry Not Your Father's Sans Serif">{{cite web |last1=Berry |first1=John D.|title=Not Your Father's Sans Serif |url=https://creativepro.com/dot-font-not-your-father-s-sans-serif/ |website=Creative Pro |date=22 July 2002 |access-date=24 February 2019}}</ref><ref name="Berry Human Side of Sans Serif">{{cite web |last1=Berry |first1=John D.|title=The Human Side of Sans Serif |url=https://creativepro.com/dot-font-the-human-side-of-sans-serif/ |website=Creative Pro |date=5 August 2002 |access-date=24 February 2019}}</ref>

Modern sans-serif designs inspired by Gill often adapt the concept by creating a design better proportioned and spaced for body text, a wider and more homogeneous range of weights, something easier since the arrival of the computer due to the use of [[Multiple master fonts|multiple master]] or interpolated font design, or more irregular and hand-drawn in style.<ref name="Questioning Gill Sans" /><ref name="Alternatives to Gill Sans Butterick">{{cite web|last1=Butterick |first1=Matthew |author-link1=Matthew Butterick |title=Alternatives to Gill Sans |url=http://typographyforlawyers.com/gill-sans.html |website=Typography for Lawyers (archived) |access-date=7 August 2016 |quote=Gill Sans lit the way for other sans serif fonts that combine geometric precision with looser hand-drawn features, like Mr Eaves, [[FF Scala Sans]], and FF Quadraat Sans.|url-status=deviated |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150324044745/http://typographyforlawyers.com/gill-sans.html |archive-date=24 March 2015}}</ref> [[Jeremy Tankard]]'s [[Bliss (typeface)|Bliss]] and Volker Küster's Today Sans are modern variations; Tankard commented on the genre's eclipse that his aim was to create "the first commercial typeface with an English feel since Gill Sans".<ref name="Questioning Gill Sans" /><ref name="Bliss Pro">{{cite web|last1=Tankard|first1=Jeremy|author-link=Jeremy Tankard|title=Bliss Pro|url=http://typography.net/fontfamilies/view/27|publisher=Jeremy Tankard Typography|access-date=18 December 2015}}</ref><ref name="Macmillan2006 Bliss">{{cite book|author=Neil Macmillan|title=An A-Z of Type Designers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8lpJXXQPEqUC&pg=PA27|year=2006|publisher=Laurence King Publishing|isbn=978-1-85669-395-0|pages=26–7}}</ref> Rowton Sans is inspired by Gill but has a nearly upright italic, similar to that used by Gill in his serif font Joanna.<ref name="Identifont Rowton">{{cite web|last1=Coles|first1=Stephen|title=New Arrivals – December 2014|url=http://blog.identifont.com/show?SUO|website=Identifont|access-date=26 December 2015}}</ref><ref name="Rowton Sans">{{cite web|title=Rowton Sans|url=http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/fontyou/rowton-sans-fy/|website=MyFonts|publisher=FontYou|access-date=8 November 2015|archive-date=22 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170422124242/http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/fontyou/rowton-sans-fy|url-status=dead}}</ref> More distantly, Arthur Vanson's Chesham Sans is inspired by the British tradition of sans-serif signpainting, with many similarities to Gill's work.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Vanson|first1=Arthur|title=LHF Chesham Sans|url=http://www.letterheadfonts.com/fonts/cheshamsans.php|publisher=Letterhead Fonts}}</ref> [[Bitstream Inc.|Bitstream]]'s Humanist 521 was an unofficial digitisation, to which its Russian licensee ParaType added a Cyrillic version in 1997.<ref name="Humanist 521 Paratype">{{cite web|title=Humanist 521|url=https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/paratype/humanist-521-bt/|website=MyFonts|publisher=ParaType|access-date=22 April 2016}}</ref><ref name="Humanist 521">{{cite web|title=Humanist 521|url=https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/bitstream/humanist-521/|website=MyFonts|publisher=Bitstream|access-date=22 April 2016}}</ref> [[SoftMaker]] and Fontsite also released Gill Sans digitisations under different names, including "Chantilly" and "Gibson".<ref>{{cite web|title=Chantilly|url=http://www.fontspring.com/fonts/fontsite/chantilly|website=FontSpring|access-date=3 May 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Chantilly Serial|url=https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/softmaker/chantilly-serial/|website=MyFonts|publisher=Monotype|access-date=3 May 2015}}</ref>

More loosely, [[Syntax (typeface)|Syntax]] by Hans Eduard Meier is similar in some ways. Released in 1968 and praised by Tschichold, it was intended to be a more dynamic, handwriting-influenced sans-serif form.<ref name="Calligraphic tendencies in the development of sanserif types in the twentieth century" /><ref name="JongPurvis2005">{{cite book|first1=Cees|last1=de Jong|first2=Alston W. |last2=Purvis|first3=Friedrich|last3=Friedl|title=Creative Type: A Sourcebook of Classic and Contemporary Letterforms|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mDhXoYIGTFAC&pg=PA148|year=2005|publisher=Inmerc|isbn=978-90-6611-250-6|pages=148–151}}</ref> Its italic is, however, more of an oblique than Gill's.<ref name="Majoor My Type Design Philosophy" /> Hypatia Sans, designed by Thomas Phinney and released by Adobe, was intended to be a more characterful humanist sans design.<ref name="Hypatia Sans Pro, my new typeface">{{cite web|last1=Phinney|first1=Thomas|title=Hypatia Sans Pro, my new typeface|url=http://blog.typekit.com/2007/04/16/hypatia_sans/|website=Typekit Blog|publisher=[[Adobe Systems]]|access-date=2 May 2016}}</ref><ref name="Hypatia Sans Pro Fontspring">{{cite web|title=Hypatia Sans Pro|url=https://www.fontspring.com/fonts/adobe/hypatia-sans-pro?refby=identifont|website=Fontspring|access-date=2 May 2016}}</ref> Many other fonts are influenced by Gill Sans to some extent.<ref name="Majoor My Type Design Philosophy" /><ref name="Frontispiece">{{cite web |last1=Hall |first1=Emma Christine |title=When is #timesup coming for Eric Gill |url=http://www.thefrontispiece.com/blog/2018/1/16/when-is-times-up-coming-for-eric-gill |website=The Frontispiece |date=16 January 2018 |access-date=23 February 2019}}</ref>

===Font superfamilies===
[[File:1935 Monotype typesetter keyboard.jpg|thumb|left|A lightly customised Gill Sans on a 1935 Monotype typesetter keyboard]]

A logical extension of the humanist sans-serif concept is the [[font superfamily]]: a serif font and a matching humanist sans-serif with similar letterforms. [[Martin Majoor]]'s [[FF Scala Sans]] is a popular example of this influenced by Gill's work;<ref name="Majoor My Type Design Philosophy" /><ref name="Calligraphic tendencies in the development of sanserif types in the twentieth century" /> others include [[Charlotte Sans]] and Serif by Michael Gills for [[Letraset]],<ref name="Charlotte Sans">{{cite web|title=Charlotte Sans|url=http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/charlotte-sans/|website=MyFonts|publisher=Letraset|access-date=12 November 2015|archive-date=19 July 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170719213753/http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/charlotte-sans/|url-status=dead}}</ref> [[Mrs Eaves|Mr and Mrs Eaves]], by [[Zuzana Licko]], are based on [[Baskerville]],<ref name="Mr Eaves">{{cite web|title=Mr Eaves|url=http://www.emigre.com/EF.php?fid=213|publisher=[[Emigre (type foundry)|Emigre Graphics]]|access-date=12 November 2015}}</ref><ref name="Mr Eaves (pdf specimen)">{{cite web|title=Mr Eaves (pdf specimen)|url=https://secure.emigre.com/pdf.php?id=12|publisher=[[Emigre (type foundry)|Emigre Graphics]]|access-date=12 November 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304104441/https://secure.emigre.com/pdf.php?id=12|archive-date=4 March 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref> and Dover Sans and Serif, by Robin Mientjes, are based on Caslon.<ref name="Dover Robin Mientjes">{{cite web |title=Dover |url=http://robmientjes.nl/work/dover/ |website=Robin Mientjes |access-date=23 February 2019}}</ref><ref name="Dover Text typographica review">{{cite web |last1=Papaelias |first1=Amy |title=Dover Text |url=https://typographica.org/typeface-reviews/dover-text/ |website=Typographica |access-date=23 February 2019}}</ref> Monotype itself released [[Joanna (typeface)#Joanna Sans Nova (2015)|Joanna Sans]] in 2015, as a screen-optimised sans-serif font intended to complement (but not exactly match) Gill's serif design Joanna.<ref name="Monotype's Eric Gill Series">{{cite web|last1=Boyd|first1=Natalie|title=Monotype's Eric Gill Series|url=http://www.howdesign.com/design-business/design-news/monotypes-eric-gill-series-classic-typefaces-digital-age/|website=How Design|access-date=12 November 2015|archive-date=2 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190402111403/https://www.howdesign.com/design-business/design-news/monotypes-eric-gill-series-classic-typefaces-digital-age/|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Joanna Sans Nova MT MyFonts">{{cite web|last1=Weinzierl|first1=Terrance|title=Joanna Sans Nova MT|url=http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/joanna-sans-nova/|website=MyFonts|publisher=Monotype|access-date=6 November 2015}}</ref>

===Legal aspects===
[[File:Reklama2.jpg|thumb|Portions of this inter-war Polish advertisement (of [[Agfa-Gevaert|Gevaert]] negatives) are in Gill Sans using the "continental" alternatives resembling Futura]]

In many countries, typeface designs are [[Intellectual property protection of typefaces|not copyrightable]], and in others, such as the [[Copyright law of the United Kingdom#Historical background|United Kingdom]], the design is out of copyright after the 70 years have passed since Gill's death in 1940, when the metal type family had been essentially completed.<ref name="Gill Sans after Gill" /><ref name="UK, CDPA 1988, 48, 54" >[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/part/I/chapter/III/crossheading/typefaces Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (c. 48), § 54] (England)</ref><ref name=irish>[http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2000/en/act/pub/0028/index.html Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000] (Ireland), §§ 84–85.  Accessed 31 January 2013.</ref><ref name="RaustialaSprigman2012">{{cite book|first1=Kal|last1=Raustiala|first2=Christopher|last2=Sprigman|title=The Knockoff Economy: How Imitation Sparks Innovation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ALlRz3JGjw4C&pg=PT130|date=15 August 2012|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-991176-9|pages=130–135}}</ref> That makes it legally permissible to create alternative digitised versions of Gill Sans, although not necessarily of later Monotype additions to the font, such as the book weight and [[euro sign]]. However, the name "Gill Sans" remains a Monotype [[trademark]] (no. 1340167 in the US), and therefore is not eligible to be used to name any derivative font.<ref name="Graham1999">{{cite book|author=Lawrence D. Graham|title=Legal Battles that Shaped the Computer Industry|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c6IS3RnN6qAC&pg=PA47|year=1999|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-1-56720-178-9|pages=47–48}}</ref><ref name="Trademark Details">{{cite web|title=GILL SANS - Trademark Details|url=https://trademarks.justia.com/734/09/gill-sans-73409410.html|website=Justia|access-date=1 May 2016}}</ref>

No complete direct open-source Gill Sans clone has been released. One of the most extensive is Gillius, a derivative by the [[Arkandis Digital Foundry]] project and designer Hirwen Harendal, which includes bold, italic, condensed and condensed bold styles. It is not a pure clone, but rather is partly created by modifying [[Bitstream Vera]] and adds influences from geometric fonts that are particularly visible in the design of the "w".<ref>{{cite web|title=ADF Fonts|url=http://arkandis.tuxfamily.org/adffonts.html|website=Arkandis Digital Foundry}}</ref> K22, a foundry in [[Quezon City]] that is operated by designer "Toto G", has released two Gill Sans shadowed variants as K22 EricGill Shadow (digitising the Gill Sans Shadow 338 design) and K22 EricGill Shadow Line, an inline variant, for free for "personal, private and non-commercial purposes" and for sale for commercial use.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Devroye|first1=Luc|title=Toto|url=http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-41170.html|website=luc.devroye.org|access-date=14 December 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|author=Toto G|title=K22 EricGill Shadow|url=http://k22fonts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/k22-ericgill-shadow.html|publisher=K22 Fonts|date=22 March 2014 |access-date=14 December 2014}}</ref> Sans Guilt, a direct clone of the medium weight, was released by Brussels open source design group OSP in 2011, but contains several obvious errors, such as misaligned "w" and "x" characters.<ref>{{cite web|title=Sans Guilt release|url=http://ospublish.constantvzw.org/foundry/wp-content/uploads/SANS_GUILT.pdf|website=OSP|access-date=7 September 2014}}</ref>

{{-}}
==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Bibliography==
{{refbegin}}
* [[Sebastian Carter|Carter, Sebastian]]. ''Twentieth Century Type Designers''. W.W. Norton, 1995. {{ISBN|0-393-70199-9}}.
* Johnson, Jaspert & Berry. ''Encyclopedia of Type Faces''. Cassell & Co, 2001. {{ISBN|1-84188-139-2}}.
* Ott, Nicolaus, Friedl Fredrich, and Stein Bernard. ''Typography and Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Throughout History''. Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers. 1998, {{ISBN|1-57912-023-7}}.
* Ovenden, Mark. ''Johnston and Gill: Very British Types''. Lund Humphries. 2016, {{ISBN|978-1-84822-176-5}}
{{refend}}

{{Monotype typefaces}}
{{OS X typefaces}}
{{Eric Gill}}

[[Category:Humanist sans-serif typefaces]]
[[Category:Typefaces with infant variants]]
[[Category:Typefaces and fonts introduced in 1928]]
[[Category:Monotype typefaces]]
[[Category:Display typefaces]]
[[Category:Typefaces designed by Eric Gill]]
[[Category:Digital typefaces]]