Perhaps the new Gill Sans Pro from Monotype?

oh, i thought you were looking for Bliss.

Who's version of Gill are you using?

ChrisL

This is Adobe’s version. I am talking about.

We are forced to use Gill due to graphic guidelines, so other alternatives is not needed, thanks.

Does anyone have the Monotype Gill Sans PRO and could check if the spacing/kerning is better?

* Great with the old style figures on that, btw.

It bugs the heck out of me, too. The Adobe, Linotype and Monotype Gills have been like this since they were released around 1990. As far as I know, they are from the same source and are identical. The problem is that some of the caps are kerned against the space character. A few of the other early Monotype PostScript fonts (such as Plantin) had this "feature." I don't know if Gill Sans Pro has this problem.

My solution has been to use the Bitstream version (Humanist 521).

One would think that an opentype version would be able to use features to overcome the spacing issue. I have not seen the Pro version either.
Not so much in the lighter weights, but in the heavier weights, Gill caps seem to be too bold for the lowercase. This makes times when they meet awkward for me. It makes me want to space them more but then it looks loose. I have always found Gill Sans to be high-maintenance and use it in small doses. It is a shame because it has some very good characteristics as well.

ChrisL

You know, I just got a flyer for an Edward Tufte workshop, read through the WHOLE THING, before I noticed it was Gill Sans. I can usually smell it from a mile away, and I normally am not a fan. The power of design/typography.

Wasn't there a thread about this recently?

InDesign's optical kerning does wonders with Adobe's Gill Sans.

--Michael.

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// love what you do or do something else. //
Michael Ebert -- graphic designer, jazz saxophonist, horror movie devotee
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Yeah, Gill Sans' spacing s**cks — and the wordspace is way too wide.

In Quark you can add kerning pairs. You can also change the AFM file so you can have properly kerned font. Or in FontStudio open it up and use the the kerning part of the program (my favorite way). Try the kerning module for free from DTL, use Fontographer if you need to or FontLab. There are literally dozens of ways to custom kern your font. Before postscript, we used to output repro and kern whole fonts of the big 20 or so fonts so we would not have to kern twice, we got it close for 10 pt for text and 24 pt for headline fonts. Adobe was at Linotypes mercy in recieving the original PS fonts and they got what Typographers got, 200 or so kerning pairs, most not too nice.
The customers did not care, they got freed of me billing them a couple of grand a month for galleys of type and type modifications.
If you want I can send you kerning pairs from an AFM of a competiting font (URW Giltus) that has almost 1000 kerining pairs. You would have to adjust them somewhat, but I think they would do pretty good for you.
I agree, many classic fonts are in need of better kerning. The best thing, though is you can do it yourself for a bulk of a font pretty quickly. The biggest issue becomes "OK I KERNED it, now all my previous work is going to be too tight because it will essentialy be kerned twice" Strike a good balance between perfect for one size and crap at other sizes. I guess that is the problem founderies have too, what looks good for my application, may be inappropriate for some one or everyone else. Gosh fonts are a mess.

Nice thing is that some designers are make better use of kerning, but some don't. I think you could probably have a cottage industry just custom kerning for clients.

The Truth shall set you free

I have the Monotype Pro version, so here is a comparison to the one from Adobe:

Besides that, the "problem" with the too wide space for "1" is solved by proportional lining figures (additional to the tabular ones in Adobe's).

Sebastian, thanks for that. Seems as Monotype’s version rocks! ;-)

Short answer to Goran's question is that yes, now there are many better alternatives to Gill Sans. As Paul said much earlier, Bliss is one of them.

Long answer is that if he's stuck with having to use the older Adobe/Linotype/Monotype digitizations 'out of the box' then he could add a great deal of value to the project either by altering the spacing as Rodrigue suggests or by buying the Opentype Pro...

There is so much wrong with Gill Sans as a jobbing typeface I really wonder how it gets recommended as a corporate face (outside of the BBC and the Church of England). The local university here sets everything in Gill and Bodoni, with the result that half of what they publish is unreadable.

It is as strange a font as the man who created it. It is a great font, and like another favorite (Univers) it is loose as a goose, as we used to say. It was that way in metal and the song has remained the same, all these years. Does Monotype pro actually add glyphs/characthers? To me that would be the only reason for purchasing it, because kerning a font is pretty easy.

The Truth shall set you free

Kerning a font is something that the average user probably not would get in to, unless Quark is used. I know that some ex Quark users that shifted to (the much better IMHO) InDesign often ask about how you adjust the kerning in InDesign. As far as I know, it can’t be done from InDesign.

Me, I could easily take the font to FontLab and adjust the kerning pairs, but that would probably have another effect – when someone else opens the document with a standard Gill, so I don‘t think that‘s a good idea in this case.

I would see if we could purchase the Monotype Gill pro instead, or just forget about it and always use the Optical kerning in InDesign.

I’m more sort of a little dissappointed that such a standard typeface is not properly kerned/spaced, it bugs me I guess, and I wonder why.

Here in Stockholm, Gill is used for almost everything that the "City of Stockholm" communicates. Gill together with Times, hehe – could it be more boring? ;-)

I really think there is time for a re-design of this graphic identity.

Hey Goran – you should worry; the City of Auckland uses Rotis (as I've said elsewhere on typophile) as a corporate face, and it's rubbish in most applications.

Gill is not the only 'standard' typeface that spaces badly out of the box. I've been to situations where magazine art directors were custom kerning the Adobe/Linotype Futura. By the same token, contemporaries of mine walked into their first job precisely because they knew what to do with a custom H&J or kerning table in QX.

I could easily take the font to FontLab and adjust the kerning pairs, but that would probably have another effect – when someone else opens the document with a standard Gill, so I don‘t think that‘s a good idea in this case

My point about adding value to the project would be exactly that; make a non-standard version of Gill Sans specifically for your client that spaces properly. Get their approval to pay you for all the extra work and insist that it becomes the new [insert client name here] Gill Sans to be used in all their documentation, signage etc. Whoever advised City of Stockholm (or University of Auckland for that matter) to adopt Gill Sans as part of the earlier graphic identity was unaware of this, but I don't see why the situation can't be improved with a litle more finesse.

You do not need to change the font per se, just the AFM file or the kerning table in Quark which allows you to export the text file and you can send it along with the project and as long as the AFM or kerning file stay, you are good to go.

Ben, I wish that people would pay for kerning and H&J, in my parts, but they get this glossy eyed look and well they just do not appreciate some sensible type work. Art directors who should know better, too! I used to set type for a famous designer and he told me that his production people do not even know what leading is, and this is a man who would have a fit over minor details. So he has learned to live with type that is less than exemplary, and if he is near the top, how is the rest of the industry going to go?

The Truth shall set you free

You do not need to change the font per se, just the AFM file or the kerning table in Quark which allows you to export the text file and you can send it along with the project and as long as the AFM or kerning file stay, you are good to go.

Rodrigo, but how do you implement all this to – and from – InDesign?

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Ben, I really whish I could do that, but I think it’s a very big issue to try to implement this to every agency that works with the city etc. But a great idea, absolutely :)