GBH's typeface for PUMA inspired by parks' football staple gaffer tape

At any Sunday league football game there are certain phrases you always hear. “Let’s get at it lads!” “Offside?! Lino! Lino!” and perhaps more surprisingly “Has anyone got any tape?” Tape plays a pivotal role in amateur footy, from securing the nets to holding shin pads in place, so it seems appropriate that London design studio GBH has created PUMA’s new typeface out of gaffer tape.

Inspired by the brand’s Make Football Anywhere” DIY campaign, GBH wanted to capture the “raw, passionate enthusiasm” of grass-roots football.

“The start point was to order 150 rolls of tape and begin experimenting with folding, ripping and sticking it into shapes, to form a full Roman alphabet and the all-important kit numerals,” GBH’s Jason Gregory told It’s Nice That.

“Once we were satisfied with the look and proportion of each character, type impresarios Dalton Maag were brought in to help develop the full Roman character set, and under the art direction of GBH, add all European accents before building a fully working, digitised font.

“The finished result is not only a unique typeface which stands out from the competition, but a typeface which clearly stands out on the pitch for its legibility and brevity.”

Not only is it an eye-catching design, it’s also a nice link between the world-class talents who will wear the typeface on their kits and those who play football simply for the love of it. Speaking from experience, amateurs can sometimes feel completely alienated from the slick superstars they emulate (badly).