TwoPoints.Net design a typeface for ESPN The Magazine's Winter Olympics 2018 issue

Having previously worked with ESPN The Magazine to develop typefaces for issues focussing on the NBA and NFL, when releasing one on the Winter Olympic Games, the fortnightly publication once again turned to Hamburg-based graphic designers TwoPoints.Net. Titled Gold Rush, the most recent issue is a celebration of the female athletes who participated in this year’s games in Pyeongchang.

“We were asked to visually link the typeface to the Olympic Games,” co-founder of TwoPoints.Net, Martin Lorenz tells It’s Nice That, “without actually copying any element or colour from its visual identity.” To encapsulate this, the design studio has created a typeface inspired by the core of the games – the Olympic Rings – which visually references while not specifically incorporating any exact details or colours from the iconic logo.

“We played with the Olympics rings from the start. We made it our goal to use as many circles as possible in the typeface,” Martin explains. Beginning with these circles, the team kept on sketching, adding straight lines to the hoops until they formed legible letterforms. This process is indicative of how TwoPoints.Net often create typefaces, Martin explains, adding that “we often develop 20 different versions until we have the one we use.”

As well as the actual typeface, Martin and the rest of his team were asked to produce pictograms, layouts and an illustration. The pictograms, much like the letterforms, referenced the rich history of the Olympics. “We were inspired by the pictograms designed by the studio of Otl Aicher for the Olympic Games in Munich, 1972,” he offers. Also comprised of several circles and straight lines, the pictograms are visually akin to the type creating a unity across the spreads of the magazine and the illustration.