At the weekend Jess & I popped down to Brick Lane to see the Eric Gill x Monotype exhibition. A tribute to Gill’s typography, the exhibition explores the creation, development and refinement of his fonts.
‘Letters are things not pictures of things’ – Gill’s take on typography. You’ll know his most famous font, Gill Sans, but in this exhibition Monotype share 3 new editions; Gill Sans Nova, Joanna Sans Nova and Joanna Nova. Monotype describe these as ‘contemporary digital typefaces with a wide range of weights, alternate characters and extended language support that pay homage to Gill’s original designs.’
Jess & I enjoyed playing with the magnetic letter wall – naturally I was drawn to the Ns in a variation of weights and fonts.
On display in the tables were the original hand drawn and inked letters by Gill. They’re real things of beauty with amazing attention to the detail of the curves and lines of the letterforms.
I love a bit of Gill Sans Shadow – what do you think?
Jess couldn’t resist trying on a Gill style paper hat, although she did manage to resist buying anything from the shop – it was hard though with all of those pretty type goodies!
The exhibition is open from 4-10th November (so you have just a couple of days to catch it when this is live, sorry!) at the Truman Brewery on Brick Lane, London.