Sans-serif font
	Serif font
	Serif font (serifs in red)

In typography, a sans-serif, sans serif, san serif or simply sans typeface is one that does not have the small projecting features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. The term comes from the French word sans, meaning "without".

In print, sans-serif fonts are used for headlines rather than for body text.^[1] The conventional wisdom holds that serifs help guide the eye along the lines in large blocks of text. Sans-serifs, however, have acquired considerable acceptance for body text in Europe.

Sans-serif fonts have become the de facto standard for body text on-screen, especially online. This is partly because interlaced displays may show twittering on the fine details of the horizontal serifs. Additionally, the low resolution of digital displays in general can make fine details like serifs disappear or appear too large.

Before the term “sans-serif” became standard in English typography, a number of other terms had been used. One of these outmoded terms for sans serif was gothic, which is still used in East Asian typography and sometimes seen in font names like Century Gothic or Trade Gothic.

Sans-serif fonts are sometimes, especially in older documents, used as a device for emphasis, due to their typically blacker type color.

History[link]

Ancient usages[link]

Sans-serif forms can be found in Latin, Etruscan, and Greek inscriptions, for as early as 5th century BC.^[2] The sans serif forms had been used on stoichedon Greek inscriptions.

Early Non-Latin types[link]

The first known usage of Etruscan sans-serif foundry types was from Thomas Dempster's De Etruria regali libri VII (1723). Later at about 1745, Caslon foundry made the first sans-serif types for Etruscan languages, which was used by University Press, Oxford, for pamphlets written by Etruscan scholar John Swinton.

Revival of Latin characters[link]

According to James Mosley's Typographica journal titled The Nymph and the Grot: the revival of the sanserif letter, the sans serif letters had appeared as early as 1748, as an inscription of Nymph in the Grotto in Stourhead.^[2] However, it was classified as an experiment rather than a sign of wide-scale adoption.^[3]

In late 18th century, Neoclassicism led to architects to increasingly incorporating ancient Greek and Roman designs in contemporary structures. Among the architects, John Soane was noted for using sans serif letters on his drawings and architectural designs, which were eventually adopted by other designers, such as Thomas Banks, John Flaxman.

Sans-serif letters began to appear in printed media as early as 1805, in European Magazine. However, early 19th-century commercial sign writers and engravers had modified the sans-serif styles of neoclassical designers to include uneven stroke weights found in serif Roman fonts, producing sans-serif letters.^[2]

In 1816, the Ordnance Survey began to use 'Egyptian' type, which was printed using copper plate engraving of monoline sans-serif capital letters, to name ancient Roman sites.^[2]

Incorporation by typefounders[link]

The January 13, 1898 edition of L'Aurore (the "J'accuse" issue): An early example of sans-serif in the media. Note that only select headlines are in a sans-serif typeface.

In 1786, a rounded sans-serif font was developed by Valentin Haüy, first appeared in the book titled "Essai sur l'éducation des aveugles" (An Essay on the Education of the Blind).^[4] The purpose of this font was to be invisible and address accessibility. It was designed to emboss paper and allow the blind to read with their fingers.^[5] The design was eventually known as Haüy type.^[6]

In 1816, William Caslon IV produced the first sans-serif printing type in England for Latin characters under the title 'Two Lines English Egyptian', where 'Two Lines English' referred to the font's body size, which equals to about 28 points. Originally cut in 1812.^[7]

The first Grotesque face complete with lower-case letters was probably cast by the Schelter & Giesecke Foundry as early as 1825.^[8]

The term Sans-serif was first employed in 1830 by Figgins foundry.

In 1832, Thorowgood of Fann Street Foundry introduced Grotesque, which include the first commercial Latin printing type to include lowercase sans-serif letters

Other names for sans-serif[link]

• Egyptian: The term was first used by Joseph Farington after seeing the sans serif inscription on John Flaxman's memorial to Isaac Hawkins Brown in 1805,^[2] though today the term is commonly used to refer to slab serif, not sans serif.

• Antique: In about 1817, the Figgins foundry in London made a type with square or slab-serifs which it called 'Antique', and that name was adopted by most of the British and US typefounders. An exception was the typefounder Thorne, who confused things by marketing his Antique under the name 'Egyptian'. In France it became Egyptienne, and to worsen the confusion, the French called sans-serif type 'Antique'.^[3] Some fonts, such as Antique Olive, still carry the name.

• Grotesque: It was originally coined by William Thorowgood of Fann Street Foundry, the first person to produce a sans-serif type with lower case, in 1832. The name came from the Italian word 'grottesco', meaning 'belonging to the cave'. In Germany, the name became Grotesk. German typefounders adopted the term from the nomenclature of Fann Street Foundry, which took on the meaning of cave (or grotto) art.^[9] Nevertheless, some explained the term was derived from the surprising response from the typographers.^[10]

• Doric: It was the term first used by H. W. Caslon Foundry in Chiswell Street in 1870 to describe various sans-serif fonts at a time the generic name 'sans-serif' was commonly accepted. Eventually the foundry used Sans-serif in 1906. At that time, Doric referred to a certain kind of stressed sans-serif types.

• Gothic: Not to be confused with blackletter typeface, the term was used mainly by American type founders.^[11] The term probably derived from the architectural definition, which is neither Greek or Roman;^[12] and from the extended adjective term of 'Germany', which was the place where sans-serif typefaces became popular in 19th to 20th century.^[13] Early adopters for the term includes Miller & Richard (1863), J. & R. M. Wood (1865), Lothian, Conner, Bruce McKellar. Although the usage is now rare in the English-speaking world, the term is commonly used in Japan and South Korea.

• Heiti (Chinese: 黑體): Literally meaning 'black type', the term probably derived from the mistranslation of Gothic as blackletter typeface, even though actual blackletter fonts have serifs.

• Lineale, or Linear: The term was defined by typographic historian Maximilien Vox in the VOX-ATypI classification to describe sans-serif types. Later, in British Standards Classification of Typefaces (BS 2961:1967), lineale replaced sans-serif as classification name.

• Simplices: In Jean Alessandrini's désignations préliminaries (preliminary designations), simplices (plain typefaces) is used to describe sans-serif on the basis that the name 'lineal' refers to lines, whereas, in reality, all typefaces are made of lines, including those that are not lineals.^[14]

• Swiss: It is used as a synonym to Sans-serif. The OpenDocument format (ISO/IEC 26300:2006) and Rich Text Format can use it to specify the sans-serif generic font family name for a font used in a document.^[15][16][17]

Classification[link]

The Franklin Gothic typeface (Grotesque)

The Helvetica typeface (Neo-grotesque)

The Tahoma typeface (Humanist)

The Futura typeface (Geometric)

For the purposes of type classification, sans-serif designs can be divided into four major groups:^[18]

• Grotesque, early sans-serif designs, such as Grotesque, Akzidenz Grotesk, and Franklin Gothic.
• Neo-grotesque or Transitional or Realist, modern designs such as Standard, Bell Centennial, MS Sans Serif, Helvetica, Univers, Highway Gothic, and Arial. These are the most common sans-serif fonts. They are relatively straight in appearance and have less line width variation than Humanist sans-serif typefaces. Transitional sans-serif is sometimes called "anonymous sans-serif" due to its relatively plain appearance.
• Humanist (Calibri, Johnston, Lucida Grande, Segoe UI, Gill Sans, Myriad, Frutiger, Trebuchet MS, Tahoma, Verdana and Optima). These are the most calligraphic of the sans-serif typefaces, with some variation in line width and more legibility than other sans-serif fonts.
• Geometric (Futura, ITC Avant Garde, Century Gothic, Gotham, or Spartan). As their name suggests, Geometric sans-serif typefaces are based on geometric shapes. Note the optically circular letter "O" and the simple construction of the lowercase letter "a". Geometric sans-serif fonts have a very modern look and feel. Of these four categories, geometric fonts tend to be the least useful for body text.

Note that in some sans-serif fonts, such as Arial, the capital-i and lowercase-L appear identical. Verdana, however, keeps them distinct because Verdana's capital-i, as an exception, has serifs. Other fonts may have two horizontal bars on the capital-i, a curved tail on the lowercase-L, or both.

British Standards classification[link]

In British Standards Classification of Typefaces (BS 2961:1967), the following are defined:

• Grotesque: Lineale typefaces with 19th century origins. There is some contrast in thickness of strokes. They have squareness of curve, and curling close-set jaws. The R usually has a curled leg and the G is spurred. The ends of the curved strokes are usually horizontal. Examples include Stephenson Blake Grotesque No. 6, Condensed Sans No. 7, Monotype Headline Bold.

• Neo-grotesque: Lineale typefaces derived from the grotesque. They have less stroke contrast and are more regular in design. The jaws are more open than in the true grotesque and the g is often open-tailed. The ends of the curved strokes are usually oblique. Examples include Edel/Wotan, Univers, Helvetica.

• Geometric: Lineale typefaces constructed on simple geometric shapes, circle or rectangle. Usually monoline, and often with single-storey a. Examples include Futura, Erbar, Eurostile.

• Humanist: Lineale typefaces based on the proportions of inscriptional Roman capitals and Humanist or Garalde lower-case, rather than on early grotesques. They have some stroke contrast, with two-storey a and g. Examples include Optima, Gill Sans, Pascal.

Sans-serif analogues in non-Latin scripts[link]

The concept of a typeface without traditional flourishes spread from the Western European typographical tradition to other scripts in the late 19th century. Like their Latin counterparts, non-Latin linear faces are popular for on-screen text due to their legibility. Sans-serif analogues are in common use for Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew, and Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

See also[link]

• List of sans serif typefaces
• Serif
• East Asian sans-serif typeface
• Roman type
• Italic type
• Monospace
• Emphasis (typography)
• The British literary spoof island San Serriffe
• Will Eisner's comic The Spirit featured a female character named Sand Saref, clearly a pun on the type style.

References[link]

External links[link]

• everything2.com: sans serif
• Meet the American Gothic fonts
• British Standards for Type Classification
• An exclusive Linotype Font Feature - September 8, 2004: Now online – a nonlinear history of sans serifs by Adrian Frutiger
• Sans Serif Fonts for Ebooks

v t e Typography terminology Page Column Canons of page construction Margin Page numbering Pagination Pull quote Recto and verso Paragraph Alignment Justification Leading River Sentence spacing Widows and orphans Character Typeface anatomy Counter Diacritics Dingbat Glyph Initial Kerning Letter-spacing Ligature Subscript and superscript Swash Text figures Capitalization Letter case Small caps CamelCase Petite caps All caps Vertical aspects Ascender Descender Baseline Cap height Median Overshoot x-height Classifications Roman type Antiqua (Old Style) Transitional Didone (Modern) Serif Slab serif Sans-serif Script Blackletter type Textualis Rotunda Schwabacher Fraktur Gaelic type Angular Uncial Punctuation Dashes Hanging punctuation Hyphenation Quotation mark Prime mark Typesetting Calligraphy ETAOIN SHRDLU Font Computer font Font catalog Letterpress Lorem ipsum Movable type Pangram Phototypesetting Punchcutting Type design Typeface Type foundry Microtypography Typographic units Point Pica Cicero Em En Figure space Thin space Paren space Agate Measure Digital typography Font formats Typesetting software Character encoding Rasterization Hinting

Specimens of typefaces by Eric Gill

Arthur Eric Rowton Gill /ˈɡɪl/^[1] (22 February 1882 – 17 November 1940) was a British sculptor, typeface designer, stonecutter and printmaker, who was associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. He is a controversial figure, with his well-known religious views and subject matter being seen as at odds with his sexual and paraphiliac behaviour and erotic art.

Life[link]

Gill was born in 1882 in Brighton, Sussex (now East Sussex) and in 1897 the family moved to Chichester. He studied at Chichester Technical and Art School, and in 1900 moved to London to train as an architect with the practice of W.D. Caroe, specialists in ecclesiastical architecture. Frustrated with his training, he took evening classes in stonemasonry at Westminster Technical Institute and in calligraphy at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, where Edward Johnston, creator of the London Underground typeface, became a strong influence. In 1903 he gave up his architectural training to become a calligrapher, letter-cutter and monumental mason.

In 1904 he married Ethel Hester Moore (1878–1961), and in 1907 he moved with his family to "Sopers", a house in the village of Ditchling in Sussex, which would later become the centre of an artists' community inspired by Gill. There he started producing sculpture – his first public success was Mother and Child (1912). A self-described "disciple" of the Ceylonese philosopher and art historian Ananda Coomaraswamy, Gill was fascinated during this period by Indian temple sculpture. Along with his friend and collaborator Jacob Epstein, he planned the construction in the Sussex countryside of a colossal, hand-carved monument in imitation of the large-scale Jain structures at Gwalior Fort in Madhya Pradesh, to which he had been introduced by the Indiaphile William Rothenstein.^[2]

In 1913 he moved to Hopkin's Crank at Ditchling Common, two miles north of the village. In 1914 he produced sculptures for the stations of the cross in Westminster Cathedral. In the same year he met the typographer Stanley Morison. After the war, together with Hilary Pepler and Desmond Chute, Gill founded The Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic at Ditchling, where his pupils included the young David Jones, who soon began a relationship with Gill's daughter, Petra.

Nude woman naked reclining on a leopard skin, a graphite drawing by Gill (1928)

Sir Harry Johnston memorial plaque

In 1924 he moved to Capel-y-ffin in Wales, where he set up a new workshop, to be followed by Jones and other disciples. In 1925 he designed the Perpetua typeface, with the uppercase based upon monumental Roman inscriptions, for Morison, who was working for the Monotype Corporation.

An in-situ example of Gill's design and personal cutting of his Perpetua typeface can be found in the nave of Poling church in West Sussex, on a wall plaque commemorating the life of Sir Harry Johnston. The Perpetua design was followed by the Gill Sans typeface in 1927–30, based on the sans serif lettering originally designed for the London Underground. (Gill had collaborated with Edward Johnston in the early design of the Underground typeface, but dropped out of the project before it was completed.) In the period 1930–31 Gill designed the typeface Joanna which he used to hand-set his book, An Essay on Typography.

Gill soon tired of Capel-y-ffin, coming to feel that it had the wrong atmosphere and was too far from London, where most of his clients were. In 1928 he moved to Pigotts at Speen near High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire,^[3] where he set up a printing press and lettering workshop. He took on a number of apprentices, including David Kindersley, who in turn became a successful sculptor and engraver, and John Skelton (1923–99), his nephew, and also noted as an important letterer and sculptor. Other apprentices included Laurie Cribb, Donald Potter and Walter Ritchie.^[4] Others in the household included Denis Tegetmeier, married to Gill's daughter Petra, and Rene Hague, married to the other daughter, Joanna.

North Wind, 55 Broadway

In 1928–9, Gill carved three of eight relief sculptures on the theme of winds for Charles Holden's headquarters for the London Electric Railway (now Transport for London) at 55 Broadway, St James's. He carved a statue of the Virgin and Child for the west door of the chapel at Marlborough College.^[5]

Ariel Between Wisdom and Gaiety, BBC Broadcasting House, 1932

In 1932 Gill produced a group of sculptures, Prospero and Ariel,^[6] and others for the BBC's Broadcasting House in London. In 1937, he designed the background of the first George VI definitive stamp series for the Post Office,^[7] and in 1938 produced The Creation of Adam, three bas-reliefs in stone for the Palace of Nations, the League of Nations building in Geneva, Switzerland. During this period he was made a Royal Designer for Industry, the highest British award for designers, by the Royal Society of Arts and became a founder-member of the newly established Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry.

A deeply religious man, largely following the Roman Catholic faith, his beliefs and practices were by no means orthodox.^[8] He published numerous essays on the relationship between art and religion. He also produced a number of erotic engravings.^[9] His personal diaries describe his sexual activity in great detail including the fact that Gill sexually abused his own children, had an incestuous relationship with his sister and performed sexual acts on his dog. This aspect of Gill's life was little known until publication of the 1989 biography by Fiona MacCarthy. The earlier biography by Robert Speaight mentioned none of it.

As the revelations about Gill's private life reverberated, there was a reassessment of his personal and artistic achievement. As his recent biographer sums up:

After the initial shock, […] as Gill's history of adulteries, incest, and experimental connection with his dog became public knowledge in the late 1980s, the consequent reassessment of his life and art left his artistic reputation strengthened. Gill emerged as one of the twentieth century's strangest and most original controversialists, a sometimes infuriating, always arresting spokesman for man's continuing need of God in an increasingly materialistic civilization, and for intellectual vigour in an age of encroaching triviality.^[10]

Gill died of lung cancer in Harefield Hospital, Hillingdon (formerly Middlesex), in 1940. He was buried in Speen churchyard in the Chilterns, near Princes Risborough, the village where his last artistic community had practised. His papers and library are archived at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library at UCLA.^[11]

Typefaces[link]

Gill Sans, Gill's most famous typeface

Eric Gill's types include:

• Gill Sans (his most famous face and lasting legacy to typography 1927–30)
• Perpetua (1926)
• Perpetua Greek (1929)^[12]
• Golden Cockerel Press Type (for the Golden Cockerel Press; 1929)
• Solus (1929),
• Joanna (based on work by Granjon; 1930–31)
• Aries (1932)
• Floriated Capitals (1932)
• Bunyan (1934)
• Pilgrim (recut version of Bunyan; 1953)
• Jubilee (also known as Cunard; 1934)

In his 1947–49 redesign for Penguin Books, a project that resulted in the establishment of Penguin Composition Rules, Jan Tschichold specified use of Gill Sans for book titles, and in branding their Pelican imprint. In the 1990s, the BBC adopted Gill Sans for its wordmark and many of its on-screen television graphics.

Selected writings[link]

Bas relief in Lapworth parish church, 1928

• A Holy Tradition of Working: An Anthology of Writings, Golgonooza Press, 1983, ISBN 0-903880-30-X
• Clothes: An Essay Upon the Nature and Significance of the Natural and Artificial Integuments Worn by Men and Women, 1931, Jonathan Cape
• An Essay on Typography, 1931, ISBN 0-87923-762-7, ISBN 0-87923-950-6 (reprints)
• Christianity and Art, 1927
• Art, 1934
• Work and Property, 1937
• Gill, Eric (1937). Trousers & The Most Precious Ornament. London: Faber and Faber. OCLC 5034115. 
• Work and Culture, 1938
• Autobiography: Quod Ore Sumpsimus..., Jonathan Cape, 1940 (published posthumously) ISBN 1-870495-13-6
• Notes on Postage Stamps, Kat Ran Press, 2011. ISBN 0-9794342-1-1

See also[link]

• Eric Gill at the Midland Hotel, Morecambe
• E. M. Washington

References[link]

• Attwater, Donald. A Cell of Good Living. London : G. Chapman, 1969. ISBN 0-225-48865-5
• Bringhurst, Robert. The Elements of Typographic Style. Hartley & Marks, 1992. ISBN 0-88179-033-8.
• Collins, Judith. Eric Gill: The Sculpture. Woodstock, NY : Overlook Press, 1998. ISBN 0-87951-830-8
• Corey, Steven and MacKenzie, Julia (eds). Eric Gill: A Bibliography. St Paul's Bibliographies, 1991. ISBN 0-906795-53-2
• Dodd, Robin. From Gutenberg to OpenType. Hartley & Marks, 2006. ISBN 0-88179-210-1
• Fiedl, Frederich, Nicholas Ott and Bernard Stein. Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Through History. Black Dog & Leventhal: 1998. ISBN 1-57912-023-7.
• Fuller Peter: Essay:Eric Gill,: a Man of Many Parts. Images of God, The Consolations of lost Illusions. Chatto & Windus, 1985
• Gill, Cecil, Beatrice Warde and David Kindersley. The Life and Works of Eric Gill. Papers read at a Clark Library symposium, 22 April 1967. Los Angeles : William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, 1968
• Gill, Evan and Peace, David (eds). Eric Gill: The Inscriptions. Herbert Press: 1994. ISBN 1-871569-66-4
• Harling, Robert. The letter forms and type designs of Eric Gill. Westerham: Eva Svensson, 1976. ISBN 0-903696-04-5
• Holliday, Peter. Eric Gill in Ditchling. Oak Knoll Press, 2002. ISBN 1-58456-075-4
• Kindersley, David. Mr. Eric Gill: Further Thoughts by an Apprentice. Cardozo Kindersley Editions: 1967. 1982. ISBN 0-9501946-5-4
• MacCarthy, Fiona. Eric Gill. Faber & Faber: 1989. ISBN 0-571-14302-4
• Macmillan, Neil. An A–Z of Type Designers. Yale University Press: 2006. ISBN 0-300-11151-7.
• Miles, Jonathan. Eric Gill & David Jones at Capel-y-ffin. Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan: Seren Books, 1992. ISBN 1-85411-051-9
• Pincus, J.W., W. Turner Berry and A. F. Johnson. Encyclopædia of Type Faces. Cassell Paperback, London; 2001. ISBN 1-84188-139-2
• Skelton, Christopher, (ed.) Eric Gill – The Engravings. London: Herbert, 1990. ISBN 1-871569-15-X
• Speaight, Robert. Life of Eric Gill. London: Methuen, 1966
• Thorp, Joseph. Eric Gill. London: J. Cape, 1929
• Yorke, Malcolm. Eric Gill – Man of Flesh and Spirit. London: Constable, 1981. ISBN 0-09-463740-7

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Eric Gill

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Eric Gill

• The Eric Gill Society.
• Portraits by Eric Gill at the National Portrait Gallery (London).
• Portraits of Eric Gill at the National Portrait Gallery (London).
• Eric Gill in the Crafts Study Centre.
• Eric Gill in the Central Saint Martins Museum and Study Collection.
• Eric Gill (1882–1940) at Identifont
• "Written in stone", article on Gill's private life in relation to his work by Fiona MacCarthy
• "Baptism by fire", MacCarthy article on her discovery and publication of the details of Gill's sexual activity
• "Can the art of a paedophile be celebrated?". BBC News. 2007-09-05. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6979731.stm. Retrieved 2008-08-10. , article on the relationship of Gill's sexual deviance to his art, By Finlo Rohrer, BBC News Magazine.
• "Looking for Mr Gill" BBC Storyville Documentary on Eric Gill; filmed and directed by Luke Holland
• Postage stamps designed by Eric Gill
• Eric Gill Article on The National Archives website which deals with many of Gill's works
• London Transport Museum Photographic Archive
  • North Wind at 55 Broadway
  • East Wind at 55 Broadway
  • South Wind at 55 Broadway