The Stylised Approach

Imagination designer Paul Blackburn designed a wallchart for a monthly graphics magazine, stripping away non-essentials to arrive at a piece that ‘conveys only what I regard as the essential information – who’s playing who, when and where they’re playing, and the tournament rules to clear-up all those arguments people have down the pub about golden goals and the like’. You suspect the ‘trendy’ charts won’t be gracing many Millwall fans’ bedroom walls, but the ‘prawn-sandwiching’ of football should ensure their success with fans of good design, Chelsea fans, good-time Gooners and all the ‘marketers embracing football in a big way and the clever ad people creating all those great football ads’, as Blackburn puts it.

London consultancy Bisqit’s guide for Gillette takes a similarly pared-down stylistic approach because, as creative director Daphne Diamant explains, ‘The World Cup has produced some of the most exhilarating and memorable images of any sporting event, so little needed to be added.’ Imagery in the form of full-bleed television-effect pictures ‘remind the reader of watching and reliving those moments on the television’, she adds. The design is topped off with the eminently appropriate Dot Matrix as headline font. Not hugely useful, but an impressive departure from the norm.