Eric Gill was born in 1882 in Brighton. He studied at Chichester Technical and Art School, and in 1900 moved to London to train as an architect.In 1903 he gave up his architectural training to become a calligrapher, letter-cutter and monumental mason.
Throughout Eric Gill's life he produced a range of different art pieces. One of these was Gill Sans.
Gill sans is a sans-serif typeface original designed in 1926 in a bookshop were Gill painted the fascia over the window in sans-serif capitals.
Gill Sans became popular when in 1929 Cecil Dandridge commissioned Eric Gill to produce Gill Sans to be used on the London and North Eastern Railway for a unique typeface for all the LNER's posters and publicity material.
Gill was a well established sculptor, graphic artist and type designer, and the Gill Sans typeface takes inspiration from Edward Johnston’s Johnston typeface for London Underground, which Gill had worked on while apprenticed to Johnston.
Other fonts by Eric Gill are:
Aries
Gill Facia
Gill Facia Display
Gill Floriated Capitals
Gill Sans
Gill Sans Bold
Gill Sans Bold Condensed
Gill Sans Condensed
Gill Sans Display Bold
Gill Sans Extra Condensed Bold
Gill Sans Light Shadowed
Gill Sans Light Shadowed (Adobe)
Gill Sans Schoolbook
Gill Sans Shadowed
Gill Sans Ultra Bold
Gill Sans Ultra Bold Condensed
Humanist 521
Joanna
Joanna Extra Bold
Joanna Solotype
Jubilee
Lapidary 333
Perpetua