Christopowers reviewed An Essay on Typography by Eric Gill
Review of 'An Essay on Typography' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Gill Sans is the official font at my workplace, and I am the person responsible for enforcing its use by all the staff. It’s a beautiful modernist font which I love seeing, second only in my heart to Futura, the story of which is fascinating!
It is with that then that after months of passing by this essay in Waterstones I finally succumbed and bought it. I’ve still yet to read about the controversies of Eric Gill’s life, but one thing is clear from this essay and that is how catty and disdainful he can be - to the point that you can laugh out loud reading it.
His essay has already made me look at the world in a different way, seeing and perceiving writing with more understanding than before. In the church in Saffron Walden, I marvelled at a recently carved C and its rendering in Times New …
Gill Sans is the official font at my workplace, and I am the person responsible for enforcing its use by all the staff. It’s a beautiful modernist font which I love seeing, second only in my heart to Futura, the story of which is fascinating!
It is with that then that after months of passing by this essay in Waterstones I finally succumbed and bought it. I’ve still yet to read about the controversies of Eric Gill’s life, but one thing is clear from this essay and that is how catty and disdainful he can be - to the point that you can laugh out loud reading it.
His essay has already made me look at the world in a different way, seeing and perceiving writing with more understanding than before. In the church in Saffron Walden, I marvelled at a recently carved C and its rendering in Times New Roman, while criticising the medieval writer font used on a stained glass window which was barely legible. Gill has given me the insight and some of the vocabulary to be able to judge writing on its style and form, not just its content.
There are some beautiful quotes on beauty, and on story telling which will stick with me. And the essay ends with a provocative suggestion regarding the future of lettering and the use of shorthand, which I seem to find myself broadly in agreement with!
I recommend the read. It doesn’t take long, there’s a laugh to be had here and there, and guaranteed you’ll look at the world around you a little differently afterwards.
