The Many Faces of Eric Gill

The typographical font used by Saab (and John Lewis, amongst others) is known as 'Gill Sans' and was designed by artist Eric Gill. The following article was published in Saab Torque magazine, Spring/Summer 2001 edition.

On the face of it, the world of typographic design may appear dull and lifeless. But take a look at Eric Gill, probably best known as the designer of the typeface Gill Sans (as used by Saab), and we find a man seemingly unknown directly by the general public, but a "genius" and an "icon" to many. Eric Gill was only fifty-eight when he died after an operation for lung cancer on 17 November 1940, yet he already seemed a grand old man.The energies needed to be both a critic of society and the supporter of an extended family, an artist who did not subscribe to 'art-nonsense', and a craftsman who also had to organize a large workshop, doubtless wore him out.

Penguin Books used the Gills Sans typeface developed by Eric GillI in his short life, Gill did many things and some of them to excess. We are told that his sexual activities were certainly excessive; he seems to have exercised a "droit de seigneur" over virtually all the female members of his entourage. He also wrote too much. D H Lawrence wrote of him, when reviewing Gill's 'Art-Nonsense': "Mr Gill is not a born writer, he is a crude and crass amateur. Still less he is a born thinker . Gill accepted this criticism, but continued to tumble into print on the slightest pretext.

But when, to adapt his own phrase, he drew or carved his thoughts, instead of writing them, he was a master - both in terms of traditional sculpture of human as well as typographic figures. Gill did not consider himself an artist, but rather a workman.The clear evidence that he was more than just that made him romanticise the idea of the workman, and reclassify the artist. He was fond of quoting Ananda Coomaraswami's dictum, "An artist is not a special kind of man, but every man is a special kind of artist". He never came to terms with the idea that he was an unusually talented man.

LNER used the Gills Sans typeface developed by Eric GillFrom the mid 1920s to the mid 1930s, Eric Gill designed many typefaces and type families, the three best known are Perpetua, Gill Sans and Joanna. Out of those three, Gill Sans is probably his best known and most widely used, It was around this time that the art movement, Bauhaus, was sweeping across Europe with it's motto of "form follows function", the basis of Saab's brand ethos, and it was with this in mind that Eric Gill designed the clean, geometric design that is Gill Sans. This refreshing new design was quickly adopted by the LNER (London and North Eastern Railway) and made famous on countless railway posters, the designs of which were largely unchanged until the late 1960s. Another large scale application which carried a torch for Gill Sans, was in its use on the covers of the classic Penguin paperbacks -and it appears in two other classic designs, the original Shell logo and Cadbury's Dairy Milk Chocolate bar.

Eric Gill's "Gill Sans" typeface now used by Saab. Yet despite his outstanding talent and success as a typeface designer he was a workman at heart, it was inscriptional stone work where he felt most at home. "Stone Carver" was his own description of himself on his gravestone.

Download the 'Gill Sans' font: Download gill_sans.zip (365kb truetype font)