This blog has been a bit quiet recently for a number of reasons, but I really had to write about the fate of England’s World Cup bid a couple of weeks ago. I had great fun working on the bid, and was really hoping to become the first lethargic graphic designer to win the World Cup. Instead, I guess I made it to the finals and lost on penalties. My old PE teacher would never have predicted I would enjoy a brief career in international football.

The cover of the latest Private Eye caught my eye at the weekend. Take a good look at the banner above the rapidly balding head of Prince William on the left there. That’s possibly the last look we’ll get of my Supporter typeface at work, with the bid in tatters, the typeface is destined for retirement. It had a short but illustrious career, rubbing shoulders with royalty and being really very visible over the final few days.

The bid team did a fantastic job over the last two years, and on the day itself the English presentation was miles ahead of the others, but every expectant hope back home was about to be dashed. Still, at least they got a free T-shirt…

So alas, it was not to be, and whether the cause was bribery, politics, oligarchs or legacy, at least no-one is blaming the typography…?

Let’s cross our fingers for 2030.

I saw this picture in the paper at the weekend. It’s our new Prime Minister jogging at the G20 summit with the Spanish Prime Minister. Thing is, seeing as we are both rivals to host the 2018 World Cup, Mr Cameron has cheekily donned his England United, The World Invited T-shirt. The Spanish guy seems to be a bit annoyed. I was quite pleased.

Only just over two weeks left to make use of that slogan, as the decision will be announced on the 2nd December.

Fingers crossed…

Here’s a little typographic treat for the World Cup. Tweet your messages to @thefootwall and we’ll show them on our giant scoreboard on the side of The Brand Union in Farringdon, London.

It’s typeset in Supporter, the typeface I designed for the England 2018 World Cup bid. The letters are inspired by shirt numbers and electronic scoreboards, so they can be stacked and built with like a Lego set.

It’s visible every night and will hopefully be up for the duration of the World Cup… (…or at least England’s participation in it)

Thanks to all of the guys for making it happen – Back of the net!

Ben Casey of The Chase came in to work yesterday, and instead of the usual career synopsis, which most visitors choose to relate, he chose to talk about something “more interesting”, just one project. This was to be his work for Preston North End football club, a project which he described as “the perfect self initiated project”, encompassing design, art and football.

And I have to admit, at that point I was worried, not being a fanatical football lover, and having attended the talk in order to see some great ideas-driven graphic design from a company who have featured in D&AD every year for 23 years, I wasn’t sure I was up for a lot of football anecdotes and personal indulgences.

But I was too hasty, because Ben went on to tell us how his childhood love of Preston North End football club led from him redesigning their logo and stationery…

…to actually designing their STADIUM with no prior architectural knowledge…

“…it was just working on a grid system, similar to type really…”

If you let a graphic designer loose on a football stadium, then this is what you’re going to get:

Amazing. Seats as pixels. I have to say, that football or no football, this was right up my street, and exactly the sort of thing I struggled to inspire various meeting rooms of people with for England United. It was that sort of moment when you see something you wish you’d thought of first, except it was worse, because I had thought of it, and had it discarded.

Here’s his logo for The Great Room, the stadium’s hospitality suite:

Another shot dead on target. And what about a gift bag for the ajoining National Football Museum?

Bang. A hat-trick. The crowd go wild.

The talk predictably went into extra time. Despite there being only one project to discuss, Ben’s love for it shone through and that sort of dedication to the fabric of a brief always results in special things.

Tim from Hat-trick design sent me some images of their recent Giants of Rugby project, which he must have had some sort of sixth sense about, because it was right up my street. In fact, it’s very similar to something I’ve done for another sport-related project, but I’m not allowed to show you yet. I loved it when I saw it recently at their Typographic Circle talk, but couldn’t find much evidence of it online.

Anyway, as it’s Hat-trick, it’s pretty self explanatory. The giants of Rugby, made from little Rugby shirt icons, and printed at massive scale at Twickenham Stadium.

Which reminds me, their identity for the stadium itself was lovely too…

Apparently, Rugby is like footyball, but you’re allowed to pick the ball up and hit people.

Seeing as I posted last week about my work on the England 2018 World Cup bid, I thought I’d dig out this glimpse of the American bid identity, which has been designed by Pentagram in New York.

I really like it, and it’s strikingly similar to some of the identity work I did for the England bid which didn’t see the light of day (and which I’m not allowed to show you, sorry). As it stands, it still shares some common DNA, the custom typeface playing a central role in the identity, a campaign tagline about community based on a play of words. Even the two-tone colours are close to the England United colour palette which our host cities have been provided with.

There’s a similar tension between the bid logo and the campaign identity, although I think the balance between the two is better on the England offering so far. Interestingly, Pentagram are also designing all the bid materials themselves, whereas the England identity is being rolled out by various agencies across the country as and where needed, so is already unavoidably looking less coherent.

But hang on a minute, even I, as a football agnostic know that the USA hosted the World Cup in 1994, which is fairly recently. Surely England deserve it, having waited over 40 years…?

Check out the US bid website here…

…but obviously don’t vote for them.