Examining Italy’s PUMA Kits From A Typographic Perspective

By now, everybody’s seen Italy’s triumph over favorites Germany on the back of two Super Mario goals. But let’s delve a little deeper into a side-story of Italy and this campaign, its specially created font designed by GBH. The original premise of the font was inspired by PUMA’s “Make Football Anywhere” campaign which created goals out of common items, including household items such as tape.

One hundred and fifty rolls of tape later, the “gaffer” font found its direction and inspiration, resulting in a full Roman alphabet. By most accounts, the font is both easily read with its minimalist nature and strong contrasts for all countries using the font.

Italy however, as four-time World Cup winners, got something a bit more special with a 3-D appropriation of the font. Interestingly, African PUMA teams are classified as “speed” teams while European teams are classified as “power” teams, and their respective fonts reflect that through subtle nuances.

On a sidenote, GBH was also brought in to change up the Italian Football Federation’s logo in 2005 as the previous example had no copyright protection. An original version bearing three stars to represent three World Cups needed a quick overhaul just a year later following Italy’s hoisting of soccer’s greatest prize.

Source: designboom