Plate 03

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Viewing room — stories, objects and the people behind them.

Gill Sans and the British railway

A humanist sans built on Roman inscription proportions became the voice of an entire country's infrastructure.

Gill Sans and the British railway
TypefaceGill Sans and the British railway

The adoption Eric Gill drew it in 1928. Within five years it was on timetables, engines and posters across the LNER network.

Why it matters A typeface becomes national by being used relentlessly on ordinary things. The character of Gill Sans — warm, slightly irregular, never quite neutral — is inseparable from where Britain met it.

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