Welcome FontStructors to my inaugural Brick by Brick installment. In the coming months I hope to use this space to showcase many of your incredible FontStructions and to shine a light on you, my fellow brick junkies, who work tirelessly to enrich the site and the community with your work.

To kick things off, I’d like to take a moment to talk sports.

Two Sundays ago, I watched with devilish glee as Brett Favre threw his final interception of the season – the final interception of his career perhaps – effectively closing the door on any chance the Minnesota Vikings had at making a late game rally to win the NFC Championship game against the New Orleans Saints. While watching the game, I couldn’t help but notice my eye (my mind!) returning time and again to the slab-serif number four on Favre’s jersey. What my mind kept returning too, was a question. A question that many of you out there in FontStruct Nation I’m sure have asked yourself from time to time: can I FontStruct it?

I find when I watch sports this “can I FontStruct it” question comes up frequently. It’s purely a hypothetical question – a mental exercise and a pastime – where, having internalized the limitations of FontStruct I can look at soccer jerseys, race car numbers, scoreboard displays and determine quickly whether the letters and numbers would map to FontStruct or not. It’s possible I’m going nuts. But if I am, there is certain to be a large group of FontStructors waiting with welcoming arms in that Cuckoo’s Nest.

In fact, sports or athletics seems to be a source of continued inspiration for many in the FontStruct community. Its influence runs deep and its breadth shoots wide.

Rooting for the home team

Some FontStructions wear their athletic influence (and their FontStructor’s team loyalties) proudly on their sleeve.

Sketchbook B was so jazzed after watching South Carolina defeat Clemson he had to create Scoreboard just to document the moment. Not to be outdone, p2pnut, his heart still racing after the success of Jenson Button‘s Formula 1 success, took a few laps around the grid and created Grand Prix. Kix, another Formula 1 fan created Pole Position – a raceway classic.

Saturday May 2nd, 2009, was a great day in Geneus1‘s sports book. That was the day Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao a.k.a “PacMan” knocked out Ricky Hatton to win a light welterweight title. The next day Geneus1 created his amazing PacMan tribute FontStruction.

Inspired by Otl Aicher’s pictograms for the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Cam.ill built an extensive (and comical) set of his own Olympic icons in Pictales. Frodo7 has a set of his own competitive icons in French Defense – a chess font. And somewhere between icon and lettering, the Funk King introduced his own personal cheering section with Yay Team and Sports Wave. Oh hey, need a font made entirely of footballs or baseballs or golfballs? The Funk King’s got you covered there too. There seems to be no end to the games or the victories FontStructors will celebrate.

The winning style

There are no hard and fast rules about what constitutes a sporty typeface – script, sans, blackletter – they all work fine if done well and in the right context. Some FontStructions aren’t necessarily athletic specific but their style could be used successfully in a sports context.

Varsity, an athletic slab created by Stewf, would look as fly on that letterman jacket as it would on your home game jersey. Shasta‘s Teatral Stencil is a solidly built slab whose muscular strength makes it perfect for the gridiron or an MMA title fight.

Sector 017 by Neoqueto is a grungy modern display sans that could introduce a motocross rally as well as brand the Energy Drink™ sponsoring all the riders.

Letra Libre by nathancox, Corrida Evolved by jmarquez, and m.ove.r by minimum are all wonderful triline fonts that evoke the spirit of the lettering done for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico. Each would make strong candidates for lettering up some contemporary soccer (err…football) jerseys.

Mummification by the Funk King and Donna 85 by stigtafto are both intricate display fonts with no specific sports connection yet their details lend themselves to contemporary athletic usage. Likewise DJ Nippa‘s NCD Octangle 20 and p2spnut‘s RM Squarial are stylishly modern thin faces, perfect for when you want to stay light on your feet.

I’ve barely scratched the surface here. No doubt there are countless other FontStructions I’ve missed in this brief round up. Please use the comments to help fill in the gaps and sound off on what FontSructions you think make for good sport.

Good thing are coming our way

FontStructors…I can tell you right now that February is going to be an exciting month here in FontStructlandia. Mr. Meeks is cooking up a new feature that will have you all singing teary-eyed toasts to him down at your local pub. Sadly, I should warn you; this new feature will bring about the passing of one of our beloved keepsakes. But take comfort when I tell you that this passing will be followed by a Phoenix — a rebirth! Our collective mourning will be short.

Later this month we will also launch the first ever FontStruct competition. The Rules Committee is still hard at work fine-tuning the details of the contest but now is the time to sharpen your skates, wax up your skies, and start your mouse finger calisthenics. Did I mention prizes? Oh yes, there will be prizes! Stay tuned sports fans.