Gill Sans
Ultra Bold
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Add type sampleCyrillic Bold Inclined
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Add type sampleCredits
- Classification
- Sans Serif, Humanist Sans
- Original Format
- Metal (Machine Composition)
Background
Eric Gill (1882-1940) was a versatile talent, active in many disciplines from wood-engraving to sculpture and calligraphy. In the 1920s his creative abilities turned to type design and in 1928 Gill Sans was born.
The successful Gill Sans was issued by Monotype in 1928 to 1930. The roots of Gill Sans can be traced to the typeface that Gill’s teacher, Edward Johnston, designed for the signage of the London Underground Railway in 1918. Gill´s alphabet is more classical in proportion and contains what have become known as his signature flared capital R and eyeglass lowercase g. Gill Sans is a humanist sans serif with some geometric touches in its structures. It also has a distinctly British feel. Legible and modern though sometimes cheerfully idiosyncratic, the lighter weights work for text, and the bolder weights make for compelling display typography.
Originally Gill designed this typeface as an uppercase set. The lowercase
characters were added in 1929 and having spent much of the 1930s
developing further weights and variations, Gill Sans now represents one of his most widely used typefaces.
The Pro version includes the original 17 cuts plus a few new cuts. All have been extended in glyph sets from the Standard collection.