Gill Sans typeface by Eric Gill

The Gill Sans alphabet is classical in proportion. It is classified as a "humanist" sans serif, making it very legible and readable in text and display work. This makes it better suited than most sans serif typefaces to setting bodies of text. The humanist movement, which occurred during the Renaissance, reacquainted society with art, literature and education. The first writing styles to come out of the movement took the upright shapes of Textura and introduced roundness and uniformity. Gill Sans, influenced by this period, uses the classic forms of "a" and "g". The rounded "c," "e" and "f" are the first examples of vertical stroke ends, which create the optical effect of the stroke thinning towards the ending, alluding to Roman type.

Despite its roots in the Renaissance, however, Gill Sans is a modern typeface - the radical geometric shapes are typical of the Art Deco movement, which was happening at the time of its creation. The Gill Sans family is huge, with 36 derivatives, including Gill Sans Light, Gill Sans Condensed, Gill Sans Bold and Gill Sans Ultra Bold.

Many of the derivatives were created in the Monotype drawing office with input by Gill as consultant to the design project - they were not mechanically produced from a single drawing, like Helvetica or Univers.

The table above compares some of the distinctive letters in Gill Sans with Arial and Verdana.

The tail of the "Q" does not extend into the counter, as with Arial. It is also an entirely different shape to Verdana - like the "O" it is perfectly round, while Verdana is oval, and the tail does not curve as much. It is at more of an angle, and does not have a vertical stroke end.

Like Arial and Verdana, Gill Sans uses a double storey lowercase "a". The Gill Sans "a" has a spur similar to Arial, and is one of the "exception to the rule" characters, with thick and thin strokes. The main difference between the Gill Sans and Arial lowercase "a" is that Gill Sans has a vertical stroke ending (like Verdana), and Arial is almost horizontal.

The Gill Sans "W" is wider in proportion than both Arial and Verdana.

Except for the different X-height, the Gill Sans lowercase "y" is very similar to Verdana. The tail as at the same angle, and does not curve like Arial.