13 March 07
Gill's Flawed Masterpiece
Ben Archer writes in Singapore’s designer magazine that Eric Gill got it wrong in redesigning Johnson’s typeface for the London Underground.
Eric Gill is one of my heroes so it’s hard to hear this kind of thing but having tried to work extensively with Gill Sans for two large projects over the past year, even I can’t argue that the bolder weights are unproblematic.
Archer puts forward other, in his opinion better, redesigns of Johnson’s typeface, many of which have faded into oblivion.
Stephen Coles in Typographica provides a couple of others. One I’d be particularly interested in trying out is Bliss, clean and “humanistic” without some of the quirks of Frutiger.
Previous: Nearly Four Years Next: Olive Oil Party-Oh
Bliss is very nice indeed. One day I will get around to learning more about typefaces. I don’t really know what I like until I use it. In theory I completely adhere to the serif typefaces are easier to read orthodoxy, but in practice can never bring myself to use them – I started off blogging with one, but very soon changed it.