EricGill drew ''Gill Sans'' for the MonotypeCorporation in the late 1920's. Gill is based on EdwardJohnston's face for London Transport of ten years previous. Like Johnston's face Gill is closely modelled on the letter forms produced by a round-hand pen. 

Unlike the straight-edge-and-compass faces that came out of mainland Europe around the same time, Gill is a "humanist" face, the letter forms are characterful and highly legible, even in body text, which most sans faces are not.

See http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/P/P_152.html for some examples of Gill Sans fonts from Adobe.

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Text set in Gill has a special feel for me because the flash-cards used to teach reading at the junior school I attended were printed in it. -- KeithBraithwaite

So is ''that'' how we get you to pay attention?

''I'll expect you to communicate with me in 140pt Gill Sans Bold from now on, Richard. One word per card, please.''

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GillSans has a special feel for me because it was taught as kind of writing I had
to do in my Technical Drawing classes in secondary school in England.  It
went along with drawing British Standards Institute arrowheads. -- DickBotting

''That exciting?''

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It is a shame that the Gill Sans that Adobe shows on the referenced page doesn't have a bowl for the lower case L (ell). [This means that the lower case ell curves in the same way as the bottom of a rounded t (tee) does; and similarly for other characters like t (tee) and y (wye).] 

I always thought that the characterful and legible font used by Transport signs in the UK had this feature. It is one that I have sought in a standard screen/computer font for years, but cannot find. The point is this: I like sans serif fonts for screen work: they tend to be compact and legible, however, they all (without exception, apparently) do not distinguish between lower case L (ell), upper case I (eye) and the digit 1 (one). I would have thought that a computer font should have had these distinctions (and those like it -- e.g. zero and upper case O (oh)) as a primary requirement. But no. -- StevePowell

The face used on UK road signage does indeed have a bowl on the 'l'. Does anyone know what face it is? I seem to remember reading somewhere that it is a fairly standard sans face with the 'a' swapped out in favour of a Gill style 'a'. Might be hallucinating, though -- KeithBraithwaite

There's a free font called "Paddington" from designer Stephen Moye [http://www.moorstation.org/typoasis/designers/moye/] that mimics the London Underground font. --CodyBoisclair

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Lucida Console is a sans serif font for the screen that distingushes quite effectively between l, 1, and I. It's not nearly as graceful as the font from the London Transport signs, but I find it very readable even on a computer screen and at small sizes.  It appears to be available from Adobe, but I've found it already installed on every Windows or Linux machine where I've looked for it.  The Adobe web page indicates that it was designed by Kris Holmes and Charles Bigelow in 1985. -- MossCollum

I've since noted that, despite its virtues with respect to l, 1, and I, Lucida seems to entirely fail to distinguish between O (oh) and 0 (zero). A pity. --mc

''It does distinguish them, but not enough to be visible at certain sizes. At 12 pixels tall they look the same, but at 11 and 13 they look different.''

BitstreamVera Sans Mono also clearly distinguishes between l1I and 0O. It's become my console font of choice. --CodyBoisclair

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CategoryTypeface