Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Path: utzoo!sq!lee
From: lee@sq.sq.com (Liam R. E. Quin)
Subject: Re: ATM 1.1
Message-ID: <1991Mar25.190705.22352@sq.sq.com>
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada
References: <1991Mar17.204145.537@sbcs.sunysb.edu> <31183@usc> <73552092@bfmny0.BFM.COM>
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 91 19:07:05 GMT
Lines: 31

>That GillSans supplied with Adobe Type Manager 1.1 is a pretty weird
>font, isn't it!  I hate the tiny x-height as far as 300dpi printing
>goes.  Doesn't it look like the face the Brits use on their street and
>tube signs and a lot of their adverts?

Speaking as an Englishman :-),

The tube signs are in a font especially designed for the London Underground
by Edward Johnston, probably the most influential calligrapher in history!

Road signs are in either Helvetica or Futura in general, with Helvetica
much more dominant.  If you travel in Italy, you will find that Futura is
more common.

This is why Helvetica appears bland to an English eye -- it is used for
Airport Signs Saying No Smoking, and is associated with singularly
uninteresting text!

Fonts with a low x-height are often used in advertisements to give specific
effects, but picking up a British newspaper I see helvetica in abundance!

Eric Gill's Sans font was, however, designed in part by superimposing many
versions of each letter, so perhaps to some extent it was a caricature of
existing practice.

Lee

-- 
Liam R. E. Quin,  lee@sq.com, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, +1 (416) 963-8337
    `A wrong that cannot be repaired must be transcended'
						Ursula K. Le Guin, in _Tehanu_