The Daylight Bakery

Driving back from Stockton last week I stopped to take a good look at the beautiful 'Daylight Bakery' building. The former home of the baker Ralph Spark Ltd is a gorgeous example of the Art Deco style. The signage font had me slightly baffled though. I was initially thinking Gill Sans, but then I spotted that strange 'G' and have come to the conclusion that this is a custom font, albeit based on Gill, that must have been designed especially for the building, which is on on Bishopton Lane in Stockton.

Designing signs

Apparently the nation of India is embarking on a quest to come up with a symbol to match the status of its burgeoning economy on the world stage. An invitation has gone out to designers everywhere to come up with a symbol to represent the Rupee, just as we have our £ sign, the US have their $ sign and Europe has its € sign. The Indian government's search for the perfectly formed sign is via an open competition, which stipulates that entries "should represent the historical and cultural ethos of India."

You'd think that this could be the dream job for a type designer, but the process is riddled with difficulties, as the BBC article indicates...

"Getting a symbol onto the international scene can be a complicated and lengthy process, says Mr Siebert.

There are the questions about where the new character should be placed in the character table and where it should be placed on the keyboard. (Outside the country in question, it is most likely to be rendered through special coding with keyboard short-cuts.)

Then the operating systems of millions of computers would need to be upgraded, as would dozens and dozens of font sets."

Still, I wouldn't mind a crack at the project...

I know your type #3 Gill Sans

Eric Gill studied under the renowned calligrapher, Edward Johnson, the designer of the London Underground sans serif typeface. This influenced Gill who later experimented with sans serif designs, and in due course produced a set of capital letters. These became Monotype series 231, produced in 1928, and the forerunner of the extensive Gill Sans font family now available.

Gill Sans is a twentieth century sans serif that has a simplicity of form which does not reject traditional forms and proportions, and gives the face a humanist feel. The lighter Gill Sans fonts remain highly readable in text and suitable for magazine and book work, whereas the heavier weights are best used for display in advertising, packaging and labels. The light and medium Gill Sans fonts are good for text and all weights look good in display work. [Hat Tip - Fonts.com]

I know your Type #2 Bembo

The history of Bembo originates in Venice, an important typographic center in 15th and 16th century Europe. Many printers established businesses in Venice at this time, but none so significant as Aldus Manutius. Next to Gutenberg, Aldus was perhaps the most influential printer of the Renaissance and the first of many great scholar-printers. Late in the 15th century, Aldus published a relatively insignificant essay by the Italian scholar Pietro Bembo. The type used for the text was a new design commissioned by Aldus and cut by Francesco Griffo, a goldsmith-turned-punchcutter.

Griffo’s design was lighter and more harmonious in weight than earlier romans. Text set in the face was also more inviting and easier to read than previous designs. Three years later, the basic font was enhanced by the introduction of a suite of corresponding capital letters. (Hat Tip: Fonts.com)