Since the release of Monotype’s Gill Sans Titling in 1928, Eric Gill’s namesake family has been enormously successful for the company. As a result, there has been a demand for many variations of the design over the years, from the variants conceived by Gill himself to those produced in-house by Monotype, with or without Gill’s involvement. But even those faces first drawn by Gill were completed by the draftsmen and technicians of the Monotype Works in Salfords, who were the real hands that turned Gill’s concept of a sans serif letter into fully realized typefaces. Thanks to the commercial success of the Gill Sans family, it is one of the more fully documented examples of the growth and evolution of a design, with ample drawings, samples, and correspondence still held in Monotype’s archive.

Dan Rhatigan is a type director at Monotype, based in New York. He works on custom type development projects and consults on typographic issues with customers, and from time to time he gives talks about type and typography. Prior to Monotype, Dan worked as a publishing technologies analyst for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, as a designer for Thirteen/WNET in New York, and with numerous freelance clients. Over the years, he has also taught graphic design, typography, and branding. Dan holds a BFA degree in Graphic Design from Boston University, and a MA in Typeface Design from the University of Reading in the United Kingdom.

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