“Designing fonts is designing tools”: Two Points.Net on its latest typeface for Nike

When Two Points.Net are usually designing a typeface, it’s usually very concept driven, “and the visual outcome is the result of our research, concept and strategy,” says Martin Lorenz, co-founder of the studio. However when it came to Two Points’ most recent project for a new Nike shop in Chelsea’s football club, the design followed a slightly different process.

Handed over a back catalogue of information on “the club, its values and the new stadium,” the most important factor the studio were asked to consider was “to experiment freely and come up with something unique,” Martin tells It’s Nice That. “Which is fantastic, but also really scary. I mean, it’s Nike, and they have so many incredible designers working for them.”

Deciding that the best foot forward was to try and let “go of the pressure and do something we find interesting,” the result is a typeface comprising of three different fonts which become increasingly three dimensional. Two Points’ approach was to go with their gut on what felt like an intuitive reflection of the information they were given, and “fortunately others shared our opinion,” adds Martin.

Considering the multiple possibilities with their developed typeface, there are several different opportunities for its use too, as shown through the studio’s experiments with animation, shading and shape. When repurposed in these ways, the viewer can notice other details too, our eyes’ focus on the slogan being communicated, or a typographic detail for example.

This most recent venture is one of a long line of Two Points’ sports-based design ventures. Within the typographic arm of the studio alone, it has worked with ESPN on a Winter Olympics typeface in 2018 and several typefaces used for the ESPN NBA too. “We never intended to work for the sports market,” says Martin on this point, “but apparently our approach and work somehow fits,” he says. “I’m not talking about style, but approach.”

In the context of the work they are producing, and who they are producing it for, “the companies we’ve worked for are huge,” says Martin. “They have fantastic in-house design teams. They do not need another designer, designing applications.” As a result, when these companies, which just so happen to be within the sports sphere are on the lookout for an external design team to tap up, “they need them to design tools to work with,” the designers points out. “Designing fonts is designing tools. A font is a flexible visual system, which can be easily implemented in the design process.”

With this approach most definitely accomplished, who knows where we’ll see a Two Points.Net typeface turn up next!