LeBron James may have come up short last season in the NBA Finals and in the race to be named Most Valuable Player, but he has come away with one thing Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors don’t have: his very own typeface.
London-based studio Sawdust created James a font designed to represent the ball player’s style on the court. It’s aptly named—wait for it—LeBron James. Commissioned by Nike Basketball, the overseers of King James’ collection of clothes and shoes, the font style takes its cues from the existing LBJ23 logo.
Nike
The font also draws from James himself. An anomaly on the court, the extremely athletic and high-flying superstar moves with grace and exceptional vision despite being built like a Thing from the Fantastic Four. James sports a hybrid style of strength and finesse that has rarely been seen in the league prior to his debut, and it’s served him well over the course of his career, netting him two NBA titles and four MVP awards.
With all that in mind, Sawdust built a boxy, slick font that will be used to represent James—not that anyone is going to really notice, because it’s a font. No word on if the top of the letters have plugs to hide the fact the serifs are receding like James’ hairline.
Sawdust isn’t exactly new to the game of crafting typefaces for superstars. Former MVP Kevin Durant got his own look, as did Kobe Bryant, who surprisingly opted not to type out his retirement poem in his signature font.
While it might be cool that James has his own typeface, any NBA fan could tell you that he’s not the member of the Cleveland Cavaliers organization who needs help with his font choice. Would someone please help Dan Gilbert change his settings in Microsoft Office so he can stop typing up official documents in Comic Sans?
H/T Wired | Photo via Keith Allison/Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0)