An artist could therefore digitize the font himself and either copyright his digitization, or release it into PD or under SIL OFL licence and Monotype can do nothing about it, as long as the artist doesn't use the Gill Sans name. Gill Sans MT is a digitized version of the original Gill Sans font.Gill Sans digital font, as digitized by Monotype Corporation, is owned and copyrighted by them.Ī typeface itself cannot really be patented nor copyrighted, only trademarked. Gill Sans font has been supplied with Windows for many years, since Windows XP as Gill Sans MT (MT for Monotype which licenses the font to Microsoft). There are other fonts that can replace Eric Gill fonts. Our purpose is to alert our readers to a possible but avoidable difficulty, especially in publicly available work like brochures, signs and even PowerPoint slides. Office Watch isn’t the place for such a discussion, and we are hardly qualified to do so.

These are all good questions that reasonable people can debate and disagree on. At what point does a creators work become unacceptable, even decades after their death? What if the work has no obvious relation to their awful and illegal conduct? What about works derived from the original? Are spin-offs also off-limits? In this case, would there be as much controversy if the font didn’t bear his name? The whole debate raises important questions about what’s now called “Cancel Culture”. The statue made by Gill outside Broadcasting House has been attacked, literally. Both the BBC and now the Save the Children charity are dropping Gill Sans from their logo and design standards. That’s made Gill’s work increasingly problematic.

His own diaries confirm sexual and incestuous abuse with his sisters, daughters and a dog. It’s sometimes called “the Helvetica of England” because of its widespread use. Penguin Books used it for their distinctive covers.

Gill Sans has been a popular font since the 1920’s when it was used by one of London’s many railway companies and later British Railways. He also worked for Monotype as a font consultant, producing fonts such as Perpetua, Joanna and, named in his honor, Gill Sans. Eric Gill was an English sculptor and designer who did sculptures that are still in public view today, most notably outside BBC Broadcasting House in London.

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