July 07, 2014

Horse 1708 - 2015 AFC Asian Cup - Names and Numbers

Watching the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, I'm amazed at how coordinated all of the graphics appear to be. The signs at the venue match the captions which feature in both the score in the top left hand corner and the information graphics which appear at the bottom of the screen. Those things from a design perspective all fit together and make for a complete package...

Except...

Except the players kits.

Ugh.

I'm not complaining that they look terrible but I do bemoan the fact that Adidas numbers and names look different to Nike numbers and names, as they do from Puma, Lotto, Marathon and Burrda. It's probably not really obvious until you actually look at them all yourself.
This website, Historical Football Kits, is an invaluable source for this sort of thing:
http://www.historicalkits.co.uk/international/tournaments/fifa-world-cup/2014/2014-index.html

I suppose that I'm rather annoyed at this because I've seen how having a standard font for names and numbers, not only makes the whole league look cohesive and together but it makes things far easier for consumers when it come to buying a kit.

The standardised "Optima" lettering appeared in the English Premier League for the 1997/98 season. This was replaced ten years later for the 2007/08 season.
The A-League started out with a font for its first season in 2005/06 and this was replaced for the 2012/13 season. The AFL finally standardised its numbers for the 2008 season (i think) and finally in 2014 added names to the back of kits.
In all cases a standard set of numbers and names, makes the whole package look cohesive, makes it look like it all fits together.


This brings me to the subject of the 2015 AFC Asian Cup. I really hope that whoever is in charge of this, decides that it's finally time to have a standard font for names and numbers for the tournament and that this standard font carries over into the on-screen graphics.
Personally I'd like it if all nations adopted the standard A-League font for the 2015 AFC Asian Cup because, it as the marketing says it's in "our backyard", then like everyone who hosts something in their backyard, we get to make up the rules.
Further to this, it would even be useful if at the bottom of the numbers, the logo for the tournament could be added, just like it is for the English Premier League of the AFL.

I know that this hardly sounds like an innovation (in fact it's probably 17 years old, if the Premier League was in fact the first to do this) but I honestly can't think of a reason why it shouldn't be done. We've got until January 2015 to sort this out; that's ample time.

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