Why Neville Brody’s new font for Nike Women’s Soccer doesn’t quite meet its goal
When it comes to creating his latest sporting type, Brody appears to have put more effort in grandiloquence than in the design itself.
For as long as I can remember I’ve been fascinated by fonts.
As a writer, how words are presented visually is almost as important to me as to what they say.
My love of typography can trace itself back to the 1980s when a burst of creativity in the magazine market saw the emergence of many new fonts. Two of the style titles pushing the boundaries in terms of page layouts and in particular with striking new fonts were The Face and Arena. And the typographer behind many of those was Neville Brody who went on to create in excess of 23 font families.
In recent years, with ease of reading and legibility on a small scale becoming more and more important, there’s been a trend towards simplicity, with sans serif fonts such as Helvetica becoming omnipresent.
With so many logos, headlines and copy reverting to type and playing it safe, one could even say that mainstream typography has become bland.
My last commentary on typography was a critique of the new identity from Evri, the courier company formerly known as Hermes.
That was in December 2022, now four months later another font has caught my attention: the one to be used by Nike on its women’s soccer jersey’s for this summer’s World Cup in Australia. My immediate impression was it looked familiar, very familiar. And I was right.
But before going into its etymology, let’s take a look at the “modular, shape-driven” font Brody has created for the England women’s football kit which debuted on 6 April 2023, and more particularly, the froth that is being used to describe it.
For me, whether it’s a new font, a new pair of trainers, a new car or a new building, great design speaks for itself. It doesn’t need blather or baloney to explain why it looks the way it does. Yes, some context can help one’s understanding, but ultimately it should make sense without aid of explanation. Indeed, one suspects the more grandiloquence, the more questionable the design.
The first thing Brody is attributed with saying is that the typeface is taller and lighter to accommodate reduced sizing and features more angled elements with stencil-like lines “to bring more of an inventive and creative narrative.” A taller, lighter font makes sense given the need to often accommodate long or double-barrelled surnames on the shirt, but quite what he means by “a more creative narrative” is nebulous at best. As is his rationale for the stencil feel:
“This functions as a means to create lettering that feels modular and slightly industrial, emphasising team dynamics and efficient organisation.”
Now while that all sounds perfectly appropriate for a football jersey, it really is little more than poppycock. Seriously, can you look at the typeface and interpret it as either emphasising team dynamics or efficient organisation?
My own view is that the font is a bit of a mishmash, as some of the letterstyles clearly do not visually match. There are two principal design elements: a curvaceous form and an angled cut to the horizontals, both best represented by the letters E and G. But this design language doesn’t appear at all in at least five of the letters, the A, D, I, O, and U, for example, lack any ‘design’ features.
What stands out even more are the M, N and W which have neither the curvaceous form nor the angled cuts. Indeed, they look like they belong to another font family entirely. This lack of cohesion gives the impression that the designers were just being lazy.
Regards the numerals, I have less issues as I think the letter forms work well, especially the 1, 6 and 9. However, I can’t see any reason at all for the stencil lines.
Brody added that while some of the original ideas for the typeface were more “adventurous”, he and his team worked with Nike to ensure it remained legible — especially on-screen during a fast-paced match. He described this as “Exploring the boundary between legibility and abstraction, seeking the sweet spot between expression and function.”
It turns out that the custom font for the 2023 Women’s kits “evolved” from the 2014 Men’s kit which Brody also designed. Although of course he explains it in more chintzy language:
“It evolved from the same core spine and approach [as the 2014 typeface] but was reconfigured according to the different form and proportions of the kit.”
“We incorporated many architectural and stylistic elements, including angled cuts, strokes and use of negative space and a geometric approach to how curves joined straight lines.”
The typeface’s stencil-like design also featured in its 2014 iteration and cuts through the numbers displayed on each player’s shirt.
Regards the stencil-like design, back in March 2014 Brody had this to say about what inspired the original typeface:
“The core inspiration was to focus on the intersection between flair and workmanlike reliability.”
He further explained:
“The industrialised suggestion of a stencil was simultaneously based on a pinstripe motif, combining style with no-frills efficiency.”
Conclusion: Like any design, fonts are subjective. What appeals to one person, another may not be so keen on. Ultimately, a font’s purpose is to be legible, whilst at the same time imbuing some character or personality into the words it portrays. With so many fonts in existence, creating one that stands out is far from easy, so it’s no wonder there’s a lot of derivation, if not across the alphabet then at least in certain letters and numerals.
The choice of font can help convey modernity or conservatism, they can be daring or dull. They can instantly convey the personality of a brand or an organisation, or they can be so bland they’re hardly even noticed. One thing all good fonts should share is a familial style, where all the letters look like they’re part of the same design language. And that’s where this font for Nike disappoints, because it lacks visual cohesion.
Whether that matters when it comes to a player’s name on a soccer jersey is questionable. All it really needs to be is legible. Whilst a fancy font may add some ‘personality’ to the kit, my biggest gripe is it often appears more effort is put into justifying the design, than the actual design itself.
About the author: Based in Sussex-by-the-Sea, on England’s south coast, Gary is a creative writer and image-maker. He specialises in creating out of the ordinary portraits of musicians and people with interesting faces, as well as photographing some of the world’s finest flowers and gardens, not forgetting an array of automotive exotica.
On the writing side, he has used his research skills to author deep dives into some noteworthy songs beginning with Bryan Ferry’s ‘These Foolish Things’ ‘Ghost Town’ by The Specials, ‘Real Wild Child’ by Ivan and ‘All The Young Dudes’ by Mott the Hoople.
He has also written a biography of Robert Palmer and the stories behind Whitesnake’s blatant Led Zep rip-off, ‘Still Of The Night’, Harry Styles’ anthem to positivity, ‘Treat People With Kindness’ and the little known Queen track ‘Cool Cat.’
Most recently, Gary has penned the fascinating story behind George Orwell’s dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four.’ as well as ‘Believe It Or Not’ a look into the rise of fake news.
All these can be found here on Medium, along with his reviews of gigs and events and chats with musicians including the likes of Royal Blood, Joe Satriani and Wolf Alice.
