There are now about as many… from Essay of Typography

First published 1931

Dartmouth Book Arts Workshop

Printed by James Mahoney’s Digital Design Class, 2015

Eric Gill (1882-1940) was a sculptor, stone cutter, engraver and typographer, who designed the typefaces such as Gill Sans and Perpetua. His quote – ‘There are now about as many different varieties of letters as there are different kinds of fools’ – printed on this broadsheet is taken from Gill’s Essay of Typography (1931). In the essay, Gill bemoans the effects of industrialism, mechanisation, and mass production on the traditional crafts of typography and printing. It’s an irony that this broadsheet printed at the Dartmouth Book Arts Workshop uses several different fonts.