The archive · Design & Visual · Product decision · 2024
Tottenham Hotspur modernises its iconic 2006 shirt typeface instead of replacing it
Tottenham rebuilt the Spurs Display font created in 2006 into a flexible modern typeface that keeps its recognisable character across today's channels
Tottenham Hotspur FC
What it had to solve
Tottenham's Spurs Display typeface, created in 2006, had become a highly identifiable brand asset used throughout club communications and in the names and numbers on players' shirts. By the time of the redesign it was showing its age and lacked the flexibility the club needed to communicate across the many channels a modern club operates in.
How it works
In 2006 Tottenham Hotspur got a display typeface of its own. Spurs Display became a highly identifiable brand asset, running through the club's communications and across the names and numbers on players' shirts — a piece of the club's visual identity that fans saw every matchday.
Nearly two decades later the font was showing its age. It lacked the flexibility the club needed to communicate across the channels of today's game, but it was too iconic to abandon, so the redesign set out to build on the font's recognisable nature rather than start over.
The project modernised the typeface and made it more adaptable, aiming to keep the Spurs character intact while letting the club use it across shirt printing, screens and the wider range of modern communications. Continuity was the point: the asset evolved instead of being replaced.
The D&AD awards archive keeps the work as a type-design entry, recording Tottenham Hotspur FC as both brand and client.
Why it lands
- The 2006 font had become part of the club's identity, especially through shirt names and numbers, so replacing it wholesale would have discarded years of recognition.
- Modernising rather than redesigning preserved the iconic letterforms while solving the real problem: flexibility across today's many channels.
- Treating a font as a living brand asset lets a club keep visual continuity through eras instead of restarting its identity every few years.
- A typeface that works from a shirt number to a digital surface makes every piece of communication feel like the same club without extra design work.
What it did
A font that could have been replaced was remastered instead, so the club kept the visual continuity fans already identified with while gaining the flexibility its communications needed. The work was kept in the D&AD awards archive as a type design entry, an industry record that the redesigned face remains the club's own voice.
What you can take
A beloved brand asset ages; the fix is remastering, not replacement: keep what makes it iconic and give it the flexibility today's channels demand.
Since then
The D&AD awards archive entry records the remastered Spurs typeface with Tottenham Hotspur FC as brand and client, without publishing adoption metrics or design specifics. The lasting move is the decision itself: when an iconic asset starts to feel dated, the alternative to replacement is remastering — modernising the form while protecting what made it recognisable, so the club's voice survives the change of channels.
Sources
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