KH HORTE PIE STERB¬
LICHEN STAUNEN AM
MEISTEN+DASS ERDE

LOGO, FONT 8c LETTERING BIBLE

BEGINNING OF
THE GOSPEL OF
JESUS CHRIST,
THE SON OF GOD;

MON OTY P E

TRADE MARK

GILUSANS

THE HISTORY OF A FAMOUS TYPE FACE:

'MONOTYPE" GILL SANS

_FROM ITSJNCEPTION IN I9J8 AS TITLING CAPITALS 131

', WHEN IT COMPRISED_______

TO THE END OF

THE LARGEST RELATED SERIES _GROUP_

FOR MODERN COMPOSITION AND DISPLAY___

EVER. BASED ON A SINGLE DESIGN,.

_SET FORTH AS.A SUMMARY. SPECIMEN

In June, 1928, ■'Monotype" GILL SANS made its first
appearance before the printing industry. The occasion,

an important meeting of executive printers, was
worthy of the début of a design which can well be called
"important" for its effect on commercial printing.

The proinmmc of the Publicity and Selling Scion of lha F.M.P.A. Con¬
ia "Irot*,,«nd wweh i°

led. The conienti drawn

fcrtncf it Blackpool w.i the first
public me of ¿111 Sani for any

, mon of t

|[ It worth recording the emotion! with which Gill Sans was £rcetcd
□ П lu first public appearance, because the incident showed what a
different attitude was then taken towards what wc now call the
functional job. as against what was called the "art fob". Unless that
difference is rocognited, it is Impossible to understand why
"Monotype" Gill Sans has destroyed so much that lay in
its path: so many Imitation woodcut initials, so many "arc
borders", so many leaden leavings from the past. Gill Sans
did not enter as "another candidate" for the crowded
display frames. It certainly did not win its way as "another
grot" (grotesque). It came as a live destroyer of dead metal
and dead categories—such as "artistic Job", or "mere
commercial printing". But in 1920 those two phrases were
still used to challenge the newcomer to the type book.

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CONSPECTUS

Everybody knows the name Gill of Gill Sans fame, but
fewer know of the Eric Gill whose illustrated works ran
the gamut from Hamletto The Jungle Book. I discovered
this by searching Gill on www.abebooks.com. The two
pieces above are from The Four Gospels, 1931 (the orig¬
inal woodcut was only seven inches wide), and The
Passion, 1927. The clean lines and orderly composition
of these woodcuts reveal a talent equally suited to type
as to drawing. This ode to Gill Sans, left, was published
in The Monotype Recorder, 1931. According to
Dictionary.com, conspectus means "a general survey of a
subject; a synopsis." That can be our word for the day!