Unfortunately due to not being able to get the software for the Helvetica Typeface so I chose to change my Type Specimen Screen in Week 3 to Gill Sans as it is known to be ‘the British version of Helvetica’.
I already knew a little about Gill Sans as it is quite a standard sans-serif font and we briefly covered it in Kyles lecture in Week Two. It is a humanistic sans-serif typeface created by Eric Gill, an English sculptor and type designer born in 1882.
Johnston Sans was created by Edward Johnston in 1913 for the London Underground. Eric Gill played a small role in creating the font as he was an apprentice for Johnston although he was never completely satisfied with the work and in 1926 Gill set himself the goal of creating a more perfect, legible typeface.
In 1928, Gills font got recognised for its potential suitability for commercial use and Gill Sans was developed and released. By 1929 it had rose to high popularity and was being used by all of London railways. Today Gill Sans is used by the likes of the London underground, the BBC and Tommy Hilfiger.
I started off looking at some existing Type Specimen Screens for Gill Sans, taking into consideration their layouts, spacing, the amount of information they display, colours used and the overall look.
I liked how most of the posters focused on the ‘g’ as it is one of the more interesting and intricate letters of the typeface, as well as still including the whole name. They all also highlighted the date ‘1928’, the year of its creation and some including basic information such as Eric Gill’s name.
I then looked at the logos of companies and organisations who use Gill Sans for inspiration:
For my first Type Specimen Screen, I wanted to base it solely around the London underground and focusing on the logo. I looked at a few examples of existing Gill Sans type specimen screens for inspiration on how I could go about creating my own:
I then started to sketch some of my own ideas in ProCreate, focusing on using the emblem of London Underground. I started off just create a simple black and white symbol, displaying letters inside the circle although I didn’t really like the overall look of it. I then experimented with using the coloured underground symbol and displaying the Gill Sans typeface.