Gill (series 262) — Quarter strength jobbing

Stanley Morison was impressed by the practical yet beautifully shaped serifless capitals of the lettering on the sign above the Bristol bookshop of his friend Douglas Cleverdon, painted by Eric Gill. He therefore persuaded Gill to provide drawings not only for an upper case titling alphabet but also for a lower case. Gill introduced some variations in thickness: this was in order to reduce the monotony often found in lengthy passages set in the earlier sans serif faces, in which the letters were often mechanically drawn and of geometrically consistent proportions.

Gill, an outspoken opponent of industrial methods in any work better done by hand, was at first reluctant to have his handiwork transformed by machines into types, which would then be used for printing by other machines. Morison convinced Gill that good printing was an acceptable extension of good design, with the result that Gill not only designed other types but also set himself up as a commercial printer with his son-in-law René Hague as Hague and Gill, had his own types made and wrote about printing.

The first showing of Gill Sans was the programme Stanley Morison designed for a meeting of the Publicity and Selling Committee at the Congress of the Federation of Master Printers in 1928. Gill himself made the drawings for all the variants of Gill Sans, condensed, bold or fat, & although he modified his original design following suggestions by the Monotype Type Drawing Office, the various display versions were drawn by Gill and not developed by mechanical methods.

Until the advent of Univers in 1957, Gill Sans was the most universally used of all sans serif faces. Now, freed from excessive and often insensitive commercial use, it is beginning to be seen again as the well-pro-portioned and attractive face it is.