F37^® Foundry

EA SPORTS FC™

We created two striking brand-new font families for the highly anticipated launch of EA SPORTS FC, including full Cyrillic and Arabic alphabets.

Advertising

The Iconic Player Marker

“

The challenge for us and F37® is - how do create a font family that truly reflects the dynamic shapes and tactical game-play from every aspect of the pitch while, delivering on an authentic legacy that's rooted in football culture?

With EA Sports FC™, we had an incredible opportunity to craft two prolific typefaces, custom modelled on two influential footballers. One from the glory years of modern football and the other from the new era of football we thrive in today.

F37’s expertise and deep understanding of our design vision resulted in a dual font family that exceeded all our expectations. The craftsmanship exhibited in creating our EA Sports FC™ brand fonts was utterly outstanding.

The letterforms were impeccably balanced, displaying a harmonious blend of elegance and modernity. The character spacing and kerning were meticulously adjusted, ensuring optimal readability for in gameplay and visual appeal for in-world applications.

A truly exceptional experience, from start to finish.

Haider Muhdi — Design Director, Uncommon

Case Study

Soundtrack

Super font family

Background

EA SPORTS’ phenomenal FIFA series has been the benchmark in football gaming for the past 30 years. As their long-running partnership with FIFA drew to a close, EA decided it was time for a new beginning.

With the licence to use the FIFA name running out, EA decided to go it alone, changing the name and look of the series. And this meant introducing a completely new brand vision, identity and logo.

IN GAME

Delivery

As part of the new branding system, advertising agency Uncommon Creative Studio commissioned F37® to design two companion font families — a functional sans and a more characterful Modern serif for editorial and display use.

We kicked off three intensive months of typographic design by figuring out how we could subtly incorporate a triangular motif into a workhorse text font and a more expressive headline font. This turned out to be our biggest project to date, going well into extra time, as we explored various different routes and creative possibilities.

The triangle concept is central to the Uncommon branding for EA SPORTS FC™. It references both the iconic, ever-present player marker that appears in the video game, but also the importance of passing triangles in real-life football. We had the new triangular logo and a triangular grid developed by Uncommon as starting points.

Named after famous footballers, one male and one female, both families use delicate triangular incisions in selected joins of the letterforms. These have been carefully carried over into all scripts, with the Arabic version taking a slightly different form to respect the written ductus of the script.

The sans family comes in back slant, upright and italic in six weights, and a monospaced font in five weights — a squad of 90 styles in total. Marta, the headline font has four weights and two italics. It’s high contrast, precise and striking, with each script making nuanced references to particular historical models, while also using contemporary sensibilities to add coherence. And if there’s ever the need to bring on a sub, we also crafted a special 'attack set' of extra-angular alternate glyphs, designed for large use.