The typeface on the walls of the Toronto subway – or rather, none of the typefaces on any of the walls – is Gill Sans. A common mistake, one that Paul Arthur actually made – and, though he later corrected himself (incorrectly again, as we’ll see), he wanted the entire system to be typeset in actual Gill Sans:
It’s much too light for signage, and the usual difficulty of distinguishing 1, I, and l reaches its apotheosis in Gill Sans, since all those characters are a simple vertical line. Some of Paul Arthur’s drawings show a real 1, others the straight-line (also “real”) 1.
Select a category to see additional posts. Add feed/ to a category to subscribe via RSS
The foregoing posting appeared on Joe Clark’s personal Weblog on 2007.09.03 13:52. This presentation was designed for printing and omits components that make sense only onscreen. (If you are seeing this on a screen, then the page stylesheet was not loaded or not loaded properly.) The permanent link is: https://blog.fawny.org/2007/09/03/14atypi2b/
(Values you enter are stored and may be published)
Information
This personal Weblog is unlikely to be updated again until my next book comes out. (SeeBest postings)
Just add /year/month/day/ to the end of site’s URL, blog.fawny.org. You can add just /year/month/, or just /year/, if you wish. Years are four-digit, month and day two-digit (with padding zero below 10). For example:
