Sawdust creates a bespoke typeface for NBA champion Kobe Bryant

When Nike Jordan approaches you with NBA champion Kobe Bryant’s name and existing brand identity, and asks you to create a fully functioning bespoke typeface to accompany it, the pressure is on you to deliver something good. Fortunately, Sawdust, AKA Jonathan Quainton and Rob Gonzalez, is more or less au fait with work of this calibre, having worked on typography and identity projects for clients like The New York Times and Coca-Cola. 

“Like with any bespoke typeface the idea was to have something that exists exclusively for the player and him as a brand,” Rob from the London-based creative studio explains. “We worked closely with the designers at Nike to realise something that is unique, versatile and very much on brand with Kobe Bryant as a Jordan-signed player.”

Working with characteristics from the existing logo-mark, the duo developed a bespoke typeface which feels dynamic and sharp. “The design was inspired by the star-like negative space that is created in the central point of the logo mark,” he says. “It creates movement and energy, which is something we tried to capture in the type design.” We wonder what Kobe thinks of it.