GD Albio
The humanist subgenre of sanserifs first emerged in the UK with Edward Johnston’s 1916 design for the London Underground and his student Eric Gill’s 1928 design Gill Sans.
These designs departed from earlier sanserifs. When sanserif fonts first emerged in the 19th century, they were based on the proportions of the serif typefaces that were popular at the time (the ‘modern’ genre) but with reduced stroke contrast and without the serifs. Johnston instead based his proportions on Roman capitals, which to his mind “held the supreme place among letters for readableness and beauty”.
However, Johnston Sans doesn’t preserve the calligraphic nature of Roman capitals, but rather transformed them into machine-like geometric simplicity. To this, Johnston Sans added some details like the lowercase ‘l’ with a tail that aids legibility. And some eccentric features like the diamond-shaped dots on ‘i’ and ‘j’, and the diagonally cut terminals on ‘a’, ‘1’ and ‘5’, all of which add a welcome sense of sharpness to the design.
Eric Gill built on his teacher’s work when he designed Gill Sans for Monotype. Some eccentricities were removed while others were added. In places, Gill flirted with humanist calligraphy, and allowed himself varied stroke contrast, but other letters instead go for simplified geometry. The design reflects personal whimsy rather than a consistent design principle. If you look at Gill’s draughts, they lack attention to details like overshoot on round letters, instead leaving such things to the skilled craftsmen at Monotype, who probably should have been given more credit for the success of Gill Sans as well as other famous typefaces in the Monotype catalogue, like Times and Bembo.
GD Albio takes an eclectic approach to Johnston Sans and Gill Sans, picking up on some characteristic details while leaving others. Despite being inspired by historical models, it’s not a revival of anything, but a contemporary sanserif, designed to meet the demands of contemporary designers.
GD Albio is sold at GD Foundry.
