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…

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.

Football’s never really been my thing, but I watched the England game this week with particular interest. Before the game, the Wembley crowd spelled out ‘England 2018′ in a typeface I designed. It’s called Supporter, and it was created especially for the FA’s World Cup bid.

It’s a monospaced display typeface, inspired by shirt lettering and scoreboard type. It’s carefully built to stack vertically and horizontally in a grid formation to create tight type lockups on banners and other promotional materials.

It was first used at the press launch along with the campaign slogan back in May…

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Yesterday was the launch of England’s bid to host the 2018 (or 2022) football World Cup. As we’ve been working on the project, we went along for the event which was very impressive, to see our work up close and rub shoulders with the stars at Wembley.

Snappy slogan eh? And a nice font too…

I even got to meet David Beckham who signed my invitation for me, nice chap…

It’s been all over the sports pages today, the campaign will be running from now until next December when the FIFA panel will decide who gets the cup. Head over to www.england2018bid.com to see how you can support the goal.

The new Formula one season kicks off on the 28th March, and this year there are a lot of changes. This pretty slick video outlines the main ones, courtesy of Sebastien Vettel, Red Bull and a hefty helping of lovely CGI graphics.

Impressive, but of course, every UK F1 fan is waiting for the return of the Fleetwood Mac theme tune now it’s back on the BBC…

Sorry Jamiroquai, but it’s still the best.