27th May 2020
I’ve never thought much about typefaces other than it seems different styles evoke various emotions. I’ve spent many moments searching through looking for the right one only to land on one with minuscule differences to another but that somehow has the right curves or flourishes for what I want to say. I am sure you can tell something about a personality from the font they choose as it used to be suggested that you can attribute something from the colour of ink a person uses (red being an odd choice for example!) But there again we are generally quite conformist in our choice of font.
I did not realise that there is a difference between a typeface and a font. The former being a name given to a group of fonts that are related whereas a font is a specific size and style of that typeface. For example Arial is a typeface whereas Arial 12 pt is a font.
A consistent typeface was used to unify the railways. In 1916 The London Underground ordered a new typeface for posters and other signage from Edward Johnston, a Calligrapher. His remit was to bring the railway together because at that time the Underground was run by different companies using a variety of styles which was confusing the public. It was a success. Johnston is used on the Underground to this day.
Eric Gill was a pupil of Johnston. He was trained as an architect and moved into calligraphy and letter cutting. He created the Gill Sans typeface in 1926 which is one of the most popular typefaces in the world. Still used on parts of the UK railways (station signage, rolling stock letters, timetables), popularised on Penguin books and used to make the BBC logo. Although it is known in its own right, it seems to be a modification of the Johnston Sans typeface — using more symmetry in its letters but its clean lines are seen as ‘quite bossy’ and so in hindsight believed to have suited a more serious post war period.
Gill unfortunately had a lot of predilections. He was obsessed with sex and seemingly had sex with his children. There have at times been discussions of boycotting of the typeface due to this.
Curiosity and the rascal 