The Post Office Magazine (Vol. 1, issue 1, Jan 1934)
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The cover of the first edition of the UK’s Post Office Magazine – showing a postman at work emptying a Type C letter box. I’m surprised the GPO hadn’t had a staff magazine before this – given that as the editorial itself states there were ‘a quarter of a million’ PO employees at this date. The very ‘clean’ looking cover uses the relatively modern (at the time) Gill Sans Shadow Line typeface.
2 Comments on “The Post Office Magazine (Vol. 1, issue 1, Jan 1934)”
GSSL is such a disaster, no surprise it originally wasn’t digitised. It’s like nobody could figure out if the outline’s dimensional and the main letters sit on top of it (A/H/M/N) or if they should just draw around the letters (E/G/O). (Reminds me of Caslon’s Antique Open lowercase of a century earlier, which also feels like a good idea that needed a redraft.) Gill actually did have input on it, but someone really should have said that this sequel didn’t need to be made.
Thanks for your comment and the links! I fully agree. Monotype must have closely watched how the Germans were expanding their sans serif series, and decided that they needed such decorative additions, too, and quickly.
Gill Sans Shadow Line (1934) looks like a half-hearted response to Zeppelin (AKA Cable Shaded) and Lux (the thin-thick biline version of Erbar-Grotesk). They were both released in 1929 – see them side by side in this post.
Gill Sans Cameo (Series 233, 1935) copies the concept of Erbar’s Lucina (1926), while Gill Sans Cameo Ruled (Series 299, 1935) is a knockoff of Schaefer-Versalien (1927).