Rick Banks is a passionate football designer, in 2013 he published “Football type” a book written with Denis Hurley.
“As complete a collection as possible” of the history of football kit typography, an obsession of his since he was a child. He loved collecting soccer jerseys, he loved to study the details and details that were hidden behind the first beautiful fonts used by sports brands in the 90s.

The moment that triggered a kind of love for type design and all that followed for the young designer was the final of the 1993 Coca-Cola Cup.
“Of course, when I was eight years old, I didn’t know what fonts were,” he says in the book, “but I remember trying to recreate ‘Schmeichel’ in Umbro’s condensed plate screen printing in my school books. After pleading with my mother, she bought me a T-shirt with the Danish’s surname printed on the back. When she gave it to me, I remember almost crying over myself because the letters weren’t the correct ‘official’ character – it was printed in a local greeting card shop.”
A small episode that sums up his obsession and love, he is now ready to write the sequel, “Football type 2“. In addition, this year, given his renowned passion, he worked for MLS, the top American football league, where he designed the font that all teams will have in their official uniforms.

By now the fonts of each team change from year to year, always different and some have gone down in history. There are also case studies like the official Premier League font introduced in 2007, designed by Sporting iD. The uniform La Liga font, created in 2017, the Umbro font, banned for lack of readability. The font Bruno Maag for Tottenham Hotspur, now a real sign of recognition for the Spurs.
“Football type” is a sort of bible for all fans, after having collected in the first edition all the most iconic fonts in history, there will follow a necessary update for the design kits now increasingly expanding.