Logically, I understand all of his individual criticisms but emotionally, when I look at a chunk of text set in Gill Sans (as opposed to looking at details of individual glyphs), I find it very satisfying. My head and my heart don’t quite agree regarding the thrust of his argument. It’s one of those strange coincidences, Douglas, that you should publish this article on the day after I read this old piece by Ben Archer: Best Practices of Combining Typefaces at Smashing Magazineįiled Under: Font Combinations About Douglas Bonneville.You might also want to check out a few articles below to help you with not only Gill Sans, but any other hard-to-pair typeface: Suggested Reading The versatility of Gill Sans and its unique personality can make finding a suitable typeface pair a challenge, but it’s doable. Without any further commentary on these choice I’ll let the type speak for itself: Gill Sans & Palatino I grabbed a few more samples via screen grab from the Font Combinations App. They also have similar x-heights which helps create a sense of concord, or at least a friendly nod, between these two very distinct typefaces. Also, the typefaces are different enough from each other that they don’t clash. Some of the more geometric shapes in Gill Sans compliment the classically geometric Futura. This is a case where two sans-serif fonts work pretty well together. (Remember, all these examples are set generically, and need to be optimized in the context of a real design!) There is potential here to explore in a more specific context. I think this font pairing is very energetic, and keeps the eye moving and dancing around the text. While Gill Sans is a very quirky and thus dominant personality in most settings, the even more unique Bell Gothic tames the otherwise-wiley Gill Sans into a more submissive role.

Both typefaces are sans-serif but they share practically nothing else in common. Here we have a classic example of where contrast between two typefaces can be made to work really well. Gill Sans is the character actor of typefaces, is it not? Always odd, but somehow it works. I think the playfulness of American Typewriter brings out the levity that is intrinsic to Gill Sans in the right setting. It’s reads wrong on the package, sounds wrong even suggest eating it, but when you take a bite (if you like spicy food and if you like chocolate), you have to step back in your mind and say, “Hey, that’s not too bad!” And so it is with these two typefaces.

Kind of like cayenne pepper and dark chocolate. When I was putting together the font combinations book, I had the opportunity to see a lot of typefaces on the same page that I would never, ever, have thought to put together. Sometimes, likely combinations are found in the most unlikely ways. A close examination of Gill Sans reveals why they work so well: look at the lowercase “a”, “t”, and “r” for some quick visual insight into why Gill Sans works well with an old-style design like Goudy. The generous and complimentary x-heights work well with their old-style roots. Goudy in 1915-not too far apart) they come close. While I can’t say they were made for each other (Gill Sans was designed by Eric Gill in 1926 and Goudy Old Style was designed by Frederick W. Fonts that work with Gill Sans: Gill Sans & Goudy Old Style Why not start with a limited set of classic typefaces? Based on some research I did, I have my own fairly-representative list of the most popular classic typefaces that I used in the Font Combinations App and The Big Book of Font Combinations. If you are interested in what books we either make or might make for font combinations, the best thing to do is subscribe to the newsletter (either to the right or down below if you are on your mobile device).

Fonts similar to gill sans