Premier League football team Manchester City just introduced jerseys for its upcoming 2024-25 season, with a new custom font to match. The font is designed by Noel Gallagher, the former lead singer of Oasis, and it has some fans wishing the team had picked Papyrus instead.
Gallagher, a lifelong Man City fan, wrote out players’ names and numbers by hand. The team then turned his handwriting into the bespoke font you see on the back of the jerseys. The final result is something akin to the much-maligned Comic Sans. It’s kind of goofy-looking and hard to make out from far away, the “anyway here’s ‘Wonderwall’” of fonts. (Hipster for obnoxious.)
Man City players wore the jerseys during Saturday’s matchup against Man United and immediately inspired online complaints. One person compared the font to the look of Sharpie scribbles written in a panic; another called it “shameful.” On a Man City subreddit, a user wrote, “I don’t think they could’ve designed a more hideous font if they tried,” and one called it a “knockoff comic sans.” “Looks like a child let loose with a crayon,” wrote another.
The jerseys will be worn during Champions League, FA Cup, and Carabao Cup matches, according to the team. They won’t be worn during Premier League matches, though, because the league allows only type and numbering on jerseys from a limited number of preapproved options.
The Premier League’s kit style guide, introduced last year, has simple, bold sans-serif characters designed for clarity and for the benefit of viewers in the stadium and on TV. The team increased the height of the numbers by nearly 10%, according to ESPN.
Graphic design rules aren’t always made to be broken, especially for projects that require clarity and visibility before other creative considerations, such as jerseys worn in large stadiums. Maybe just give Gallagher a bigger Sharpie next time?