Hogan-Perpetua

Classified as a transitional typeface, Perpetua was designed by a British designer named Eric Gill. Born in Brighton, Sussex February 22, 1882, Eric Gill was the jack of many trades. He was not only a type designer; he was also a sculptor, a printmaker, and successful as an illustrator, engraver, and essayist. Gill started his studies as an architect with the practice of W.D Caroe in London. Frustrated with his training, Gill decided to take evening classes at Westminster Technical Institute and calligraphy at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. In his Calligraphy class, he studied under Edward Johnson, a heavy influence throughout his life and a large impact in directing his future because it wasn’t until these evening classes that he discovered his love for designing. In 1903, he gave up his architectural training to become a calligrapher, letter-cutter, and a wood engraver.

In 1925, at the request of Stanley Morison (Designer of Times New Roman), Gill began working on the typeface Perpetua for the Monotype Corporation. Its typeface is recognized as transitional due to its high stroke contrast and bracketed serifs and the letters of the face were designed around Trajan influenced forms. Gills design for the typeface was accompanied with two italic faces called Perpetua Italic and Felicity. His first Italic typeface, Felicity, was met with a great deal of criticism from Monotype management and actually stalled his development of the Perpetua typeface until his second Italic was created. In 1929, Perpetua Roman was issued as a Monotype Series. While waiting for the final revision of Perpetua, Gill was commissioned to draw Gill Sans, another block to the development of Perpetua. The interesting idea about the typeface Perpetua is that its’ completed family wasn’t made available to the public until 1932; over 7 years after Morison first approached Gill with the idea of creating the typeface Perpetua. For all its’ struggles in the developmental stages, Perpetua is still used widely today. In fact, in November 2007, Perpetua became the word mark of the Barack Obama presidential campaign.

Most of Gills earlier designs were done in collaboration with Monotype Corporation. Eric Gill used type as and outlet almost as his main source of artistic expression was former through stonecutting as well as printmaking. In later developments of his start to typeface design, he produced Golden Cockerell Roman, Solus, Joanna, Aries, Gill Floriated Capitals, Bunyan, Pilgrim, and Jubilee.

Due to it's recent use in the Barack Obama campaign I was considering using that presidential campaign as my concept. It is relevant to today with the fairly recent campaign and has become a typeface we are all familiar with seeing whether we realize it or not.