[Gundam-Dude]

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

Please don't use Gill Sans.
The R makes me sad. The Q and p aren't nice either.

What's your opinion of Frutiger, Syntax, and Bliss? All three of these fall under the same sans-serif classification of being Humanist Sans, with slightly different variations between American and European designs.

The thing with Humanist Sans typefaces is that the uppercase proportions are derived from Roman capital letters, meanwhile the lowercase have a distinct design to mimic the feel of human handwriting and calligraphy. Humanist Sans weren't really an innovation in terms of a classification itself, but more that it became a stabilizing form of sans serif to be used for sign making / sign writing specifically. It was what really introduced a basic monoline "block" letter based upon classical roman proportions, which had not been previously done before in the form of traditional metal type and casting.

With that being said, Gill Sans was originally designed as a display face for signage, before its popularity in usage lead to its adoption as a text typeface. Although it doesn't necessarily look appealing as a text face, there's no doubt that Gill Sans' popularity is attributed to its absolute clarity as a display face. Also to note, Neo-Grotesque sans-serif typefaces like Helvetica and Univers weren't designed until the 1950s, meanwhile Gill Sans was designed in the late 1920s. In short, you can attribute the entirety of monoline "block" letters to Gill Sans' creation because without it, you wouldn't have Helvetica's monotonous letterforms. The more you know.

P.S. Helvetica is the pinnacle of boring. It's admittedly nice, but it's the most basic bitch font.