Gill Sans Infant

Save the Children will no longer use a font designed by pedophile Eric Gill after staff warned bosses that the branding links him to child abuse. A source said the charity would ditch Gill Sans Infant Standard, which was published in 2016, and roll out a new font for 2022.

Characteristics

Gill Sans is a sans-serif typeface that has become very popular. It has a distinctive British feel to it. Its lighter weights are great for text, while its bolder styles make excellent display fonts. It is also well-suited for larger sizes.

The letters of this typeface are classical in proportion and resemble the Roman capitals used for important inscriptions. This style was inspired by the humanist movement of the Renaissance that reacquainted society with art, literature, and education. Unlike other sans-serif types, the strokes of Gill Sans are not modular. The vertical and oblique strokes have a uniform thickness. However, the letters “c,” “e” and “f” have vertical stroke ends that are thin towards their endings. This was a unique feature in its time and it is one of the main characteristics of this font.

Another notable characteristic of the Gill family is that it has a slightly lower x-height than most other sans-serifs. This makes it more space efficient when used in body copy. It also has a very large character set, including the arrows and symbols needed for display work. In addition, it supports a wide range of Latin-based languages and includes several additional alternates. The new version of this font, Gill Sans Nova, adds alternative shapes and features to the original design such as pointed diagonals on A, V, and W, and alternatives for b, d, p, and q.

Weight

The member of the humanist sans serif category, Gill Sans has a simplicity of form which does not reject traditional shapes and proportions. It has a calligraphic feel, but is not overtly decorative and the lighter weights can be used for text, while the bolder styles are compelling display fonts. It is a twentieth-century sans serif which has one foot in the past and hints at future possibilities more interesting than the closed-up forms of many geometric sans serifs.

The corporate font for the London Underground and Gill had assisted him in its development. The font quickly became popular and was used for the modernist deliberately simple covers of Penguin Books. And on British Railways posters and notices. Gill aimed to blend the influences of Johnston, and classical serif typefaces such as Caslon. And Roman inscriptions like those on Trajan’s Column. He also wanted to avoid the overly-monoline structure of some other sans serifs of the period such as Futura.

The charity Save the Children recently dropped Gill Sans Infant from its logo as a result of the pedophile scandal that surrounded its founder. But the family still retains widespread popularity in print and on screens. It is a good choice for texts where the author wishes to communicate a sense of clarity and strength. Without resorting to the hard-edged geometric styles that have become associated with modernist design.

OpenType Alternates

The font has OpenType features that allow you to select alternate glyphs by right-clicking on a character. In this way, you can have the full power of Gill Sans Infant at your fingertips. Its ligatures and contextual alternates solve problem sequences such as ‘aa’, ‘bb’, ‘dd’, and ‘qq’ with less awkward combinations. It also offers several sets of alternate characters that show experimental forms that the designer experimented with at various times. Including pointed diagonals on ‘A’, ‘V’, and ‘W’ and alternative letters such as ‘b’, ‘d’, ‘p’, and ‘q’.

This is a very useful feature when writing, especially in scripts like English and Latin, that have many ligatures. It’s also handy in general. It helps to avoid identical repeating characters, which are a dead giveaway that you are using typefaces instead of real handwriting or lettering.

Besides its ligatures and alternates. The font also has small caps in both upright and italic, as well as a large character set that supports the Latin, Greek. And Cyrillic languages. The entire family is part of the Monotype Library’s Eric Gill Series, which remasters and expands Gill’s body of work with new weights and characters. It brings to life some of his unreleased work, which was recently discovered in Monotype’s archive of original typeface drawings and designer correspondence from the last century.

Contextual Alternates

Xquenda’s experience was much different: she was raised by an extended family in a multigenerational community that provided care when she needed it. She was able to breastfeed on demand and was embraced by loving caregivers who helped her with her daily tasks. She also experienced the joy of a play-based zero to five years with access to quality childcare.

In 1928, Gill launched his first sans-serif designs with Monotype, initially, as a set of titling capitals followed by a lowercase. He aimed to blend influences from Johnston. Classic serif fonts and Roman inscriptions in a design that looked both cleanly modern and classical. It is less monoline than Johnston. It is less geometric than many German sans-serifs launched during this time, such as Futura.