So, today let's have a look at Project Files for Gil Sands, one of our most iconic type
faces. Take a look at how it actually developed internally over the years.
Probably goes up as late as the photo type era. This contains correspondence,
proofs, memos about things that were done, and the notes saying that things were approved.
So it gives a good background of how it came to be.
I need to go into the Gil Sands project file today to check some notes and maybe take some pictures
for talk that I'm going to give. But since we have visiting the office today to typeface design
students from the University of Reading, I thought it would be cool to see what they think of this
kind of internal material that the public never sees. So, here is a whole bunch of assorted Gil Sands.
There are many behind-the-scenes things that we don't even think about today in the digital age,
like the arrangement of the characters in the matrix box, and we don't really think about it.
It's just in the glyphs panel and we can find our way.
Yeah, exactly, but no one had to have a meeting about how to sort or the letters.
Or that it actually made a difference if it wasn't ordered in the right or a convenient way for someone.
It's funny when you do read about how things were done and you trace these decisions about why
they were done a certain way. It really can click in your head that you've been taking it
for granted all along. And sometimes those discussions actually reinforce that it was a
good idea and you should do it, but I love those moments. It's like, that's just a bad habit.
It can be really fresh and new, can it?
This is nice and it's actually things that we can really see these days coming back.
People are starting to do these typefaces and...
Yes, indeed they are.
I really enjoy the archaeology of a typeface when going through these folders and sort of
like figuring out the layers of how it builds up over time and add it out.
Because those are the things that, once they were decided on and approved,
that's what's carried over to the versions we have today, but they rose out of sentiment from
different times. Well, the two of you are actually studying typeface design. You like paid and made
a commitment to stop what you're doing and come and study and I did the same thing for a while.
Why did you do that instead of just starting to draw typeface? What was the value in going to
learn about how it happened? Because we're not learning how to design, we're learning how to
make researches and have a background. So support our design with something that is not just,
I'm drawing this because it's nice or because it's the style of the moment, but I'm drawing this
because I think there's this specific need that can be eaten in your scripts.
So we're getting a lot more guidance and feedback about whether our curve is this way or that way.
Is more receiving the tools of good research and the question is like that and how if this
curve could even be possible in a certain script or is it something that's not loyal to the truth
structure of the script and receiving these tools for research. I mean I'm getting a lot of the
question of I'm designing an Amharic typeface for an Ethiopian language and people are asking me
how can you how can you design it if you can't read it. And this is the thing I think we're
learning we have to really give good reasons why I did this curve and not that and this is the
research that we're doing.
There's a lot of personality that you get by them changing slightly from one version to another.
Gil Sands is an example because it's almost crazy how much it changes from one way to another.
In some ways that gives you a richer palette than having just a slightly heavier version from one
face to another. It makes it suitable for different kinds of work.
I think these are really treasures for us just to dive into and start reading and realize that
there is a story behind this. I was just thinking about it in the Hebrew. You start reading,
you figure out that there are people involved, politics, dynamics that aren't exactly related to
the design of the curve, but there is a whole story behind this.
