by Sander Neijnens
Numbers on sports shirts are meant to help the public, journalists and the referee to identify players. They should be big, but what else can you say about them?
As a typographic designer I got interested in shirt numbers and I tried to find out why certain typefaces are chosen by shirt designers. I also designed my own shirt numbers, trying to combine legibility and beauty.
Even though this project started purely as an exercise in type design, I discovered that shirt numbers do matter to certain people. The soccer team of Willem II (Tilburg, the Netherlands) agreed to use my shirt numbers in the competition 2002-2003, because they are better recognised from great distance than the ones they used before.
But many soccer teams can’t freely choose their own shirt numbers, because the sports wear company that designs the shirts urges them to use a prescribed typeface. Or, as seen in England, all teams playing in the premier league are obliged to use the same shirt numbers. In this way shirt numbers become a kind of brand.
Still, many typefaces used for shirt numbering are odd, dull and/or ugly. Some typographical insights can help in judging which typefaces are better suited for shirt numbers than others.
Many people don't notice that different football teams use different shirt numbers. But when I show them some examples and tell about the differences, most of them can no longer look at a football match without paying attention to shirt numbers. When they are used in an appropriate way, shirt numbers have branding power.
Companies and teams are experimenting with shirt numbers. But most experiments are started without any knowledge about typography and type history. First, in many cases the figures of an existing typeface are used. Because these figures are too wide —with a minimum height of 25 cm two figures of an average typeface measure more than 33 cm. in width— they have to be squeezed. The resulting figures are ugly and can easily be copied.
Second, a common fallacy is that bold or heavy figures are better legible than figures with a normal or medium weight. Shirt numbers should have the same appearance as football players: robust and certainly not too fat.
Thirdly, the nationality of typefaces seems to be irrelevant. In the past, the national team of Italy played with numbers based on an English typeface. And the English Premier League was characterised by shirt numbers based on a German design. And Nike (USA) was using the same numbers for very different national teams; numbers that are heirs of the typeface DIN (Deutsche Industrie Norm). For national football teams I propose to study the national typographic tradition, before choosing a 'hostile' typeface as the basis for shirt numbers.
Fortunately, there also are some recent examples of shirt numbering where the helping hand of a typographer can be traced. They show that original designs can be made that are characteristic and improve legibility.
Slowly the view emerges that shirt numbers really count.
for more info or to buy the book ,
visit the site of Sander Neijnens: http://www.letterbeeld.nl/shirt%20numbers/shirtnumbershome.html
