David Rudnick on "borderline impossible" process of designing Arsenal typeface

I don't know that I got anything out of this other than that it took a long time. I think there is an interesting article to be written on this. Like, what were the concrete requirements? Why were those the requirements? Maybe show how one letter evolved over time as the project went on, and explain why.

But instead the article is effectively the Gravitational Pull of Pepsi[0].

[0] https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell...

	▲	brookst 15 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Hmm. I would have appreciated more depth and details, but it did cover requirements to look good and maintain identity across print, screen, merchandise, etc. Which makes sense but that alone sent me spinning. Not easy.

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RobotToaster 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Is it me or are typeface designers some of the most pretentious people in tech? And that's a really high bar.

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tyrabound an hour ago | parent | next [-]

That is indeed a really high bar I don’t think they meet. I don’t see them pitching some nonsense as a multibillion dollar investment opportunity.

I think they’re just doing what is smart, talking about what they contribute and what their craft is, because underlying it all, the truth is they design for legal reasons, because you can only trademark your brand that is a word, which you want to license for merchandising to sell to the mindless sports masses, if you also own the typeface. You can’t really trademark or copyright Arsenal the word written in Times New Roman.

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pndy an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Dug out these discussions for your amusement; might shed additional light on this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36719987

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19756123

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Fraterkes 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Most typeface designers are pretty normal (excepting their choice of one of the most simultaneously precarious and work-intensive creative careers). David Rudnick is (in my and many others opinion) infamously pretentious. He is a prolific designer though, and even many people who dislike his work acknowledge that he's quite good at what he does.

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chirau 40 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I remember watching a whole documentary about Helvetica.

Font people, logo designers and sushi makers.

	▲	brookst 12 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		That’s not “a whole documentary”, it’s a spectacular documentary. Documentary films are like nonfiction books: any subject can be fascinating when done well, any subject can be awful and banal when done poorly. I’m not even a huge non-fiction / documentary fan but I’ll die on the hill that telling true stories with depth and passion is much harder than doing great fiction.
	▲	walthamstow 33 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		To be fair, the same guy also made a really great documentary about urbanism as part of that trilogy

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stoneman24 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yep, reading the article just revealed the designer’s self centred view of the project.

Surely the design aims, the evolution of the typeface and how it meets those aims are more important.

I do have good vision but for me (sample size 1) it’s really hard to read (especially the riband variant). How does it look for people in different environments ?. Is the aim to look iconic rather than communicate information.

I wish Arsenal well as my father was huge fan and would always look for the results.

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whywhywhywhy 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I’d argue they’re not really in tech.

	▲	estearum an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah typeface design is a deep craft that predates anything we'd call "tech" by centuries.

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youngNed an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Completely unrelated thought - are Arsenal the only club in England to not have a placename in their name?

I know they were originally Woolwich Arsenal, but they dropped the Woolwich when they moved from there.

And, of course, the big problem is, they always try to walk it in.

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walthamstow 38 minutes ago | parent [-]

Yes, the club name bears the shame of having moved across town for money. The MK Dons of the 20th century.

Port Vale is the only other one without a place name but they never moved, I don't know where the name comes from.

	▲	youngNed 11 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		ahhhh... i never thought that Port Vale wouldn't be an actual place - the internet seems to think there was a Port Vale Wharf though: https://www.thepotteries.org/walks/longport/15.htm https://portvalenostalgia.co.uk/history/

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sailorganymede 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Never thought I'd see my team on HN but I really love the changes Arsenal has done. I remember only 10 years ago, we were super corporate and quite trend chasing (with our captain Aubameyang et al. doing reaction videos and sweg sweg) and you could really tell the messaging was supposed to be sanitised and generic. I noticed esp. when Arteta got in, we started to actually have an identity of our own with the typefaces and a brand new song and all the focus on our history etc.

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notfried 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

MyFonts (I'm not affiliated to it) has a visual search for fonts, and searching for this design yields 94 results that are not identical but collectively share the same patterns. Now, fonts are horrible when it comes to licensing. Like, in this case, a font I picked has a 2M page view limit per month and you pay $660/year for that highest tier, so I get why a company would find a custom font a reasonable decision, visually and/or financially. But 4.5 years is absurd.

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citbl 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Forget the typeface you can't even get the website with this monstrosity of cookie selection panel.

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rwmj 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not as readable as the old typeface (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_F.C.#/media/File:Arsen...)

edit: Wikipedia has a whole section on the crests and typefaces: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_F.C.#Crest

	▲	TheOtherHobbes 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It works as the basis of a logo, but as a typeface it's very hard to read and clashes with almost every other font it could be paired with.

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jl6 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Speaking of ludicrous displays, it kinda looks like Fraktur.

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dbbk 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's nice that he got work for four years, I guess

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flir 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

White on red, with a stripe of red through the white.

Obviously a Spurs supporter.

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IshKebab 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Whatever typeface they're using on this website is kind of awful. It's got totally random weights on different parts of the letters. Look at the bottom of the e for example.

	▲	jstanley 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's how you know they're serious about typography. If it just straightforwardly looked good and was easy to read then you wouldn't be sure they'd put any effort into the choice.

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brod_ie 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

COYG!

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6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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gadders 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

"The ask was this: How do you make a typeface for when Arsenal shows up in culture? For those moments when football leaves the frenetic energy of the match, when it then collides and harmonises with the worlds of fashion, art, music and more."

Arsenal fans are insufferable.