Maybe some serif type designed by Gill, as well?
Like 'Joanna', or 'Perpetua', or even 'Golden Cockorel'.

Dav(id)

Hi Nicola,
have a look at these older threads: [1], [2], [3], [4]
F

Thanks for being helpful, tough Joanna and Perpetua feel a bit too sophisticated for my purpose: I'm looking for a very common serif font (eg largely available on Microsoft machine, since the company works with them, on Office applications). More suggestions are welcomed!

"Only when the design fails does it draw attention to itself; when it succeeds, it's invisible." (John D. Berry)

If it 'shall' be a 'pre-installed' typeface, you may want to consider 'Palatino', or 'Georgia'. (There is not much left with MS and 'Yay, These fine fonts came with Windows' types. ;)

> office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA011872311033.aspx
(A list of typefaces included in/with Office. It seems 'Perpetua' would be in there, as well, in recent versions.)

Dav(id)

Ciao Nicola (Antonio from studio Bunker speaking): as a companion typeface for Gill Sans, I think David’s push for Joanna is rather appropriate. It’s a lovely typeface and it’s somewhat underused here in Italy. I’m not fond of Perpetua, either.

Your other requirement that it be available by default on Windows machines is a bit of a problem, actually. As serif typefaces you have Times New Roman, Garamond, Bookman Old Style and Book Antiqua. All these are pretty shoddy renditions of other typefaces and they’re not very good as a complement to Gill Sans. You also have Georgia, which is a very good typeface, but whose proportions (x-height, ascenders and descenders) make it not a very good companion to Gill, either.

From the list linked by David, Hightower Text might be good fit, I would run a test print and see how it looks paired with Gill Sans. Proportions seem to match, at least, although a Venetian plus a beginning of last century sans might be stretching it a bit.

Maybe you could try using Charis SIL, which is a free typeface being derived from Charter, designed by Matthew Carter for office usage on mid-resolution devices. SIL also offers for free another fine typeface called Gentium, which you might try, but neither of these looks like a perfect fit color and proportions-wise, I’m afraid.

Nicola: Sylfaen is a serif typeface designed by John Hudson for Microsoft and is included with Windows XP by default. Color-wise, Gill Sans is still a bit darker, but using its light weight instead of the regular it might provide a somewhat harmonic companion to it. I would give it a shot, too.

I have long liked Minion with Gill. It's a steady counterpart that allows Gill's personality to show a bit more.

I quite like Baskerville with Gill Sans.

To meet the second requirement, another choice may be Vera Serif, although not the ideal to go with Gill Sans, it's probably better than the other Windows OS choices.