About a year after moving to the UK, I had the sudden, disappointing revelation that (seemingly) every bit of print in the entire country was set in Gill Sans. Attentive readers of Letters to an Unknown Audience will realize that Gill Sans is the face in which I (cannily, I thought then) chose to set the type of this very column some five years ago. After my awakening, I was everywhere surrounded by bus adverts, corporate logos, directional signage, hand leaflets, and all manner of other printed matter, all of which taunted me with the unoriginality of my choice, which had seemed so novel, so daring, back in the America of 2002.
Imagine my relief, then, when I realized that most of this stuff is not set in Gill Sans, but rather in the iconic face designed by Edward Johnston for the London Underground. The London Underground, you'll recall, was the first subway to have a schematic map and its own "corporate" brand. You'll immediately realize this is true—that circle with the band across its waist is known the world 'round, and who can say the same for the New York MTA's forgettable, inconstant logo? Johnston's typeface, too, is immediately recognizable; although you might not know how to name it, you surely do perceive this face as itself whenever you see it associated with the Underground.
Well, if I thought Edinburgh was plastered with the stuff, London is absolutely three sheets to the wind. The skin of London is made of Johnston's face. Every letterform in the entire subway system, of course, is set this way (and it is massive, the London Underground, with text everywhere), but also most of the signage for roads and tourist attractions, plus a whole load of kitsch that tries to cash in on the London brand (micro-museums, knick-knacks, etc.). I must have spent about 1/3 of my weekend in London watching the signs and noting how many of them were printed in this font (and, a funner sport: trying to discern the digitally set signs from the old skool, the stuff someone painted or smithed out by hand a hundred years ago).
More grostesk typographic trivia that I happened to gather: In a book called Book Design, found in the Museum of Design near the Tower Bridge, I saw a snippet of the (very snazzy) 2002 redesign of the prayer book (was it?) for the Anglican church, which was set in Gill Sans, "A choice," said the marginal note, "which was described by ————— as 'wearing its Englishness on its sleeve.'" (Yet, according to my handy Encyclopedia of Fonts (thanks, Matija!) Gill Sans is "the only typeface designed in Wales"!) Gill Sans was designed ten years after Johnston's face, this time for the "London & North Eaastern Railway" (so says Identifont; I wonder if that's related to the GNER which carried me to London?) The take-home message: it seems that my little Gill Sans is far more British, and far more ubiquitous, than I'd imagined—a blow against me.
Yet, I still find Gill Sans, in this digital, 13pt variety, an exceedingly attractive face. In this setting, and not in all-caps as the railways favour, it works as a text face: It's reasonably readable while keeping the jazziness set to medium-cool. Here at Letters to an Unknown Audience, we practice "slow design," a curmudgeonly resistance to changes—oh, I mean a thoughtful care in overall design. We plan to let the site design evolve slowly, to ever-so-gradually absorb the needs of its author(s) and constituents, without ever rushing to embrace the newest fad or eschewing a style gone apparently out of date. We are here for the long haul, O Unknown.