England’s Women’s World Cup Team Has a New Look Thanks to Neville Brody and Nike

This spring, designer Neville Brody and Nike paid homage to Wembley Stadium’s 100th birthday by collaborating on a new football kit for England’s women’s team. If you’ve been watching this summer’s FIFA Women’s World Cup, you’ll have noticed the Lionesses’ striking blue and white uniforms on display. As of this writing, England’s Lionesses are still vying for the title, having won a semi-final berth by defeating Columbia this past weekend.

The Lionesses’ new kit features lettering inspired in part by the original Wembley Stadium’s Art Deco facade and an evolution of the stencil design of Brody’s 2014 men’s kit. Balancing playfulness with much-needed readability, Brody’s new typeface complements the uniform’s textile background. The Nike-engineered fabric incorporates architectural and geometric elements for movement and texture.

It needed to be bold and confident, yet employ some degree of playfulness and invention. Legibility is a key issue, and combining that with a sense of creativity and surprise. We maintained the stencil feel from the original by incorporating a line through the centre of each number, which also introduced a more modular, shape-driven aesthetic

It’s not the first time typography has played a big role in the World Cup. Read our Type Tuesday interview with Monotype’s Charles Nix on the importance of type at the 2022 Men’s World Cup.

Photos courtesy of Brody Associates and Nike.

Kim Tidwell is an Austin-based writer and creative strategist with a penchant for 17th-century Dutch painting, mid-century typefaces, and portraits from any era. She is currently working on her first novel.