Drew Ink The year

Humanist sans

Also called Humanist grotesque

A sans that keeps the proportions and the pen-stroke logic of a serif face while dropping the serifs, which makes it the friendliest of the sans classes to read at length.

Humanist sans: a Monotype specimen of Gill Sans Bold, a sans serif keeping the proportions of a roman letter.
Gill Sans Bold in a Monotype specimen, tarrytown, photograph. CC BY 2.0. Cropped to the alphabet. Retrieved 2026-09-10.
Humanist sans: WAY OUT in Johnston on a London Underground sign at Warren Street, the letters built on the proportions of Roman capitals and a pen-formed lowercase.
Johnston on the Underground, Warren Street, Edward Johnston, 1916, redrawn as New Johnston by Banks and Miles, 1979; photographed by R/DV/RS. CC BY 2.0. Cropped to the sign. Retrieved 2026-09-10.

Near it

GrotesqueNeo-grotesqueGeometric sansHumanistAperture

What it is made of

aperturesopenthe c and s terminals point outward, which is most of why it reads well small
proportionsvaried, following the roman capitals
strokemodulated rather than uniform
VOX DID NOT HAVE THIS CLASS, which is the first thing to know about the termthe system put every sans-serif into ONE class. ATypI: "the Linéales (Lineals) combined all sans-serif types, such as Futura and Gill Sans, into one class." Gill Sans is named in that sentence as an example of the single class, not of this one.ATypI, "ATypI de-adopts Vox-ATypI typeface classification system", published 27 April 2021, read whole (1,136 words). So this term is a LATER SUBDIVISION of a Vox class rather than a Vox class, and a record that presents it as one is repeating a tidier history than the sources support. Maximilien Vox's own 1954 text is NOT HELD AND UNREAD in this house. Everything here comes from the custodian's 2021 statement, which is a primary for the system's history and its withdrawal and is NOT a definition of the individual classes
and the parent classification is retiredsee aboveAND THE CLASSIFICATION THIS TERM BELONGS TO WAS RETIRED BY ITS OWN CUSTODIAN. The ATypI board de-adopted Vox-ATypI on 18 March 2021 and withdrew its endorsement, because the system divides only the Latin writing system and a later revision put Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew and the Asian scripts together under one heading called Non-Latines. ATypI, "ATypI de-adopts Vox-ATypI typeface classification system", published 27 April 2021, read whole (1,136 words)

Where it came from

Britain, 1928, with Gill Sans, though the argument is usually traced to Edward Johnston's 1916 alphabet for the London Underground.

Done well