An Essay on TypographyAn Essay on Typography was first published in 1931, instantly recognized as a classic, and has long been unavailable. It represents Gill at his best: opinionated, fustian, and consistently humane. It is his only major work on typography and remains indispensable for anyone interested in the art of letter forms and the presentation of graphic information. This manifesto, however, is not only about letters "š€š" their form, fit, and function "š€š" but also about man's role in an industrial society. As Gill wrote later, it was his chief object "to describe two worlds "š€š" that of industrialism and that of the human workman "š€š" and to define their limits." His thinking about type is still provocative. Here are the seeds of modern advertising: unjustified lines, tight word and letter spacing, ample leading. Here is vintage Gill, as polemical as he is practical, as much concerned about the soul of man as the work of man; as much obsessed by the ends as by the means. |
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absurd advertisement artist beautiful called chisel colour commercial craftsman cursive Daily Mail designer edition Edward Johnston engraving Eric Gill Essay on Typography essential fancy lettering fifteenth century forms of letters Gill Sans Gill's Golden Cockerel gothic Gothic architecture Hague & Gill hand made papers hand press printer handwriting human imitation industrial world industrialist intellectual invention kind legibility length of lines less letter forms letter-cutter letterpress printing machine made paper machine-minder machinery manufacture margins mechanical medieval mind modern Monotype Monotype Corporation nature normal obvious ornamental pantograph perfection phonography plain printing production punch punch-cutting rational reason recognise René Hague responsible Robert Gibbings Roman alphabet Roman capitals sans-serif scribe serifs shape shorthand simply slope sort sounds spacing spite Stanley Morison stone inscription style of letter Sweynheim things three alphabets to-day tool Trajan type faces typesetting uneven words workshop writing