David Rudnick on the “borderline impossible” process of designing a bespoke blackletter typeface for Arsenal

INT: Johnnie I’d love to go back to the start and get a bit of the background. Why was a bespoke typeface needed to really complete Arsenal’s current visual universe?

Johnnie Campbell (JC): The Rocastle typeface was actually born from a much bigger project that we started just over four years ago. We’d updated our brand strategy in 2021/22, with the aim of putting supporters right at the heart of who we are as a club, making them feel pride and belonging in the community of Arsenal. A major part of that work was in the research phase, talking to supporters around the world and realising that whilst we’re predominantly a football club, our reach and impact stretches way beyond the 90 minutes of a match. We roughly mapped into three pillars – Team: Everything associated with the 90 minutes of a match. Community: The club’s connection to its local and global community beyond the 90 minutes. Culture: Where football intersects with fashion, art, music and more.

We then set about a project to update our visual identity, and talking directly to David at the time, we worked out that we needed different ways of speaking within those spaces. One main Arsenal voice, but different tones. Because celebrating a goal at Emirates Stadium is very different to talking about a commercial partnership or a new fashion drop, for example.

That spawned a huge mega brief that lasted four and a half years, where we thought about different typefaces that could give us these different tones, for different areas that the club operates in. Northbank typeface was originally for our Team pillar, Chapman was for Community, and Rocastle was the last piece to that puzzle, for us to show up in culture. However, we actually started all of them together really, so technically Rocastle has been in development for over 4 years.

INT: Why did you decide to name the typeface Rocastle? Can you tell us a bit more about why this was such an important tribute?

JC: Speaking truthfully, it was David’s idea so, I’ll let David answer... but I guess when David came to us originally with the name Rocastle, it just felt right – immediately. We knew we were always creating something that was going to be saved for the very best of Arsenal and used to really speak to culture and what makes Arsenal special.

David Rudnick (DR): When I’m designing a typeface, the name is always a really important part. From almost the first letters, there needs to be a name – you need to understand what the typeface is trying to say, what it wants to be and where it wants to go.

When we first started talking about how Arsenal could even have a system, what our voice would be, we realised that one typeface wasn’t going to cut it, nor two typefaces. We have all of these values that we represent, spaces that we show up in, ways in which we need to communicate. You could kind of see the system starting to stretch, almost infinitely out. Starting from the super intensity of the minutes and the seconds of a game and a goal announcement, (which is what the Northbank typeface became), to the time you spend with the club when you’re reading the program, or reading an interview with a favourite player and the kind of architecture that goes around that, which is what Chapman was built for.

But there’s another aspect. With Arsenal, it felt like something that was far bigger and needed to be treated a very different way, where football’s not just about minutes, seconds, or even days, weeks, or months – there’s decades, there’s centuries, there’s lifetimes. Arsenal is a club that really extends so much further than what we just see around us now. There are values which are bigger than us, that have been there since starting out. Nothing spoke more to me to what that eternal idea of the club was and the values than Rocky [David Rocastle].

At the top of this system we needed something completely unique and possibly borderline impossible, typographically. Somehow it had to be this contradiction, that was forever dynamic and new and somehow felt eternal and had always been there; that it somehow felt English, but also transcended that and became universal. Coming back to it, even David’s name, Rocastle – there’s something medieval about the ‘castle’. But who Rocky is – forever modern and of the moment – is just still so incredibly present for every fan. It felt like it had to be that name.

INT: As that interesting intersection of supporter and designer, why did you want to get involved in a project of such scale and such significance? What was the moment that you realised you were taking on this massive quest?

DR: Well, the club has been unbelievable, because I came to them with a completely crazy idea. I was like, ‘I want to build something no other club could have’. I wanted to build a system that makes Arsenal great forever and could only be Arsenal. To do that, it’s going to take years, we’re going to have to build it piece by piece. I just don’t think there’s almost any other football club in the world that would say yes to that. It’s a totally crazy thing. The hardest part was that it was going to take maybe four or five years, and I couldn’t even show you what it was going to look like. No one’s ever drawn one like this before.

The club supported the vision, and I don’t think I could have done it without Johnnie and James, and all of the team having been there through the crazy five years of revisions this has all taken. I knew it was crazy, but that also came from the kind of passion I think you get as a fan – we want to be the best, and I also want the fans to feel proud of what we have. It wasn’t just something a design agency did in six months for a brief, or the club were like, ‘Oh, we need a marketing campaign, so we need a typeface.’ This was about identity, and I think that’s where it always started.

INT: It definitely feels like something that could only have come from such a passionate supporter. Johnnie, from your perspective, I can imagine with a project of this magnitude, it’s a fine balance of staying true to Arsenal’s existing visual heritage while also bringing something that is future-facing to the table. How did you ensure this balance?

JC: I think a lot of research, immersion. What also potentially helps is our ages – being an Arsenal supporter myself, growing up and looking at what I associate the club with. Both diving back into that and trying to find the best moments from our past, but making sure that we’re future-facing and trying to find ways in which we take a creative leap of faith. It felt natural because that’s the identity of the club that I grew up with, right? But yes, it’s that balance of making sure that you’ve done the research and that you’ve got objective truths of what that Arsenal identity means to supporters. And then, obviously, working with an expert who is also a supporter gives you that confidence that you’re taking the right step forward.

INT: On that point, Johnnie, now it’s ready to be put out into the world, what do you think makes Rocastle so distinctively Arsenal?

JC: That’s a good question. I think it’s distinctively Arsenal because it’s also quite distinctively London as well. I think it speaks to going our own way, probably not following trends and reacting to what other football clubs are doing, having our own set of core truths that we stand by. Visually, when I first saw the early drafts, it transported me back to the era of Rocky in the 90s… what I think you called it, the “peak swag” era of Arsenal! But then it also feels like it could be from a hundred years before that, or could be living in a hundred years from now.

INT: That point about London, I’d love to zoom in on a bit. I think if anyone was at the parade this summer, you’ll be able to testify how incredible it was to see the streets of North London so packed, and all those incredibly fashionable takes on kits. But it’s obviously quite a two-way relationship, I think. I'd love to know, how do you think London informs Arsenal’s identity, Johnnie?

JC: I think it is a two-way thing. London definitely informs our identity, and the other way around. I’d say, obviously, we have our little dent on London culture, and we’ve played a part in that. But I’d say London’s beauty is its diversity in people, right? I think Arsenal’s story parallels really nicely with London’s story – movement from South to North and people coming together with all their different cultures to create something bigger than the individual parts. Our motto is ‘Victoria Concordia Crescit’ – ‘Victory Through Harmony’, it’s baked into who we are as an institution, and I think those two things parallel just really nicely with each other.

INT: Right now, maybe more so than ever, we’re seeing this real interest and investment in the creative of football, something I do think has been in-part spearheaded by Arsenal opening the Creative Studio in 2022 and investing so much in the women’s team, really tapping into that new audience of fans. But why, Johnnie, do you think we've seen such an increase and interest in football creative right now?

JC: I think it comes down to the fact that a football club is way more than an elite sporting organisation, right? It’s there to show up in so many moments of people’s lives. And because of that, it becomes part of your core identity. When you wear a football shirt, you’re making a statement, and you’re making a statement of support for that club. Way beyond the 90 minutes, what we need to do is fill that badge with as much creativity, pride and identity. And that’s why I think there’s been this flourish of football creativity, because it’s way more than just the 90 minutes – people can be as proud of what a football club can do away from the pitch as what they do on the pitch.

INT: So, Johnnie, supporters will get their eyes on Rocastle for the first time in the coming days. Where can we expect to see it in the coming months and years? Where do you expect it to exist within Arsenal’s brand and ecosystem?

JC: So, I’m going to be quite mysterious about that! The answer is we’re going to save it for like the very best moments. So you probably won’t see it as often or as quickly as you might think, but it’s there for our greatest moments, whether that’s in culture – which obviously it’s been built to represent primarily – or in other areas of the club. It’s going to be few and far between, but saved for the very best.

INT: And David, you’re behind this monumental project, but where would you like to see Arsenal and Rocastle turning up in design and culture in the future?

DR:With Arsenal, I think we’re something very special. We have been all my life. But we're finding more and more ways to make that kind of concrete in the world with Rocastle, and with this type identity. First, I hope that we’ve been able to build something that can mean something to people for a long time. But my dream application of Rocastle is very straightforward, very simple: it’s if a fan ever wanted to get a tattoo... I don’t think I could get a higher praise than that.