SportsComp Winners & Wrap Up
Competitions, News | afrojet | March 23rd, 2010
We’re going to need a bigger podium.
The first-ever FontStruct competition is a wrap and we, the FontStruct staff, think it was a huge success. Thanks to everyone who played, commented, cheered, favorited and judged. Everyone came together in the spirit of play to produce some outstanding results. The high level of quality FontStructions made this sports competition nearly impossible for the judges to pick just three winners. I think Rob Meek summed up the hard task facing the judges when he wrote in an email:
“People produced some incredible and diverse work and every entry needed to be looked at in detail in order to try and make a fair judgement. I’m only glad that there are other judges.”
To help round out the judges panel we brought in some FontStruct alumni and FontShop heavyweights. The judging team consisted of: Rob Meek, Stephen Coles, Gustavo Ferreira, Ivan Bettger, and myself. The task of judging was made increasingly difficult by the great turnout of FontStructors. In the end we had 24 FontStuctors who created 44 one-of-a-kind entries in just two short weeks
Honorable Mentions
There were a number of entries to the competition that didn’t end up on the medal podium but we felt still deserve an honorable mention.
Newcomer to FontStruct, Lunicus, gave us the sleek italic Lunicus Downhill Line and carved up a smashing sample to boot.
Ring by superhuasteco and Rumble by jmarquez battled it out in the boxing/wrestleing ring. Both of these heavyweights were eminently usable and remained true to the brawny nature of the sport.
Inspired by Canada’s heroic gold medal victory at this years Winter Olympics, LexKominek‘s, Hockey Club evoked the ‘players dash, with skates aflash’. Rob Meek said, “Simply a great sports font. The maple leaf cutout, the thickset, italic lean‚ it really works as a concept. Go Canada!”
Aphoria came out with Scrollboard and showed exactly how his FontStruction could be used with those amazing animated GIFs. As Ivan Bettger commented, “It reminds me of mid-’80s sports arcade games, which is generally a feel-good phenomenon to remind one of.”
Djnippa made NCD Chromica a family affair with both sans and slab versions. Gustavo Ferreira wrote: “a solid neutral legible sans & serif family with a robust heavy-duty metallic treatment. very smart use of white spots to simulate light reflecting on the metal. convincingly chrome without resorting to greyscale or shading tricks. straight-forward and very usable.”
Butterfly by CMunk combined exciting and desperate elements to produce truly unique results. Of Butterfly, Rob Meek said, “Very original and characterful blend of modern sans, uncial and some kind of South Asian vibe. Surprisingly legible and with nice subtle variations in width considering the relatively low grid resolution used.”
We had hoped we might lure a few gems from the secret hoards of our top FontStructors with this competition and with both Geneus1 and the Funk King we were not disappointed. From Geneus1‘s bag of tricks we got the funky street stylings and beautiful angular work of Throwdown, the impeccably modern, Eurostile-inspired, and television-ready Neurostijl BXT as well as the highly versatile and typographically mature Academician Series. Overall there was a high degree of craftsmanship and FontStruct mastery present in all of Geneus1′s entries.
Early in the competition, I jokingly challenged FontStructs most prodigious and prolific FontStructor, the Funk King, to create “no less then half a dozen submissions”. Well I’m happy to report: challenge accepted and challenge crushed! Of his six submissions, the judges felt that Break, with its contorted and snapping letterforms and World Cup, with its custom built soccer ball über-brick and resulting pattern font deserved honorable mentions. Witnessing the Funk King’s output, I think we were all reminded again that there can only be one true King of FontStructlandia.
Medal Winners
And now, with all the pageantry and fanfare that comes with such a momentous occasion as this, here are the medal winners for the first-ever FontStruct competition.
Gold: Wypeout by Geneus1
Geneus1 takes the gold and the FontBook with his halftone masterpiece. It’s an incredible technical marvel and showcases Geneus1′s mastery of the FontStruct tool. The shapes and effects create a smart, usable font for unique applications and layouts.
Ivan Bettger on Wypeout: “Geneus1′s skill and technique is unsurpassed. Wypeout is like an Olympic figure skater who might not have given the most soulful performance, but it hit every axle and toe loop with precision.”
Silver: fs GO TEAM! by Thalamic
A FontStruct t-shirt goes to Thalamic and his future stencil, fs GO TEAM! The Go Team hit all the right notes for this competition. It was sporty, original, usable, and demonstrated the amazing potential of FontStruct when captained by such a skilled striker.
Rob Meek on fs Go TEAM: “Love the Yay! Very clever and very practical. Full of futuristic, sporty tension. Whatever that game is they play in Battlestar Galactica, this is what they should have on their shirts.”
Bronze: Sports Classic by rockhart
Walking away with the second FS t-shirt is Sports Classic. This gem is everything the name says it is. The style is evocative of classic collegiate lettering which Andrew Lockhart’s samples show off nicely. While dusting off his old leather helmet Ivan Bettger wrote of Sports Classic, “It somehow captured my eye instantly, like a star collegiate athlete who stands out on the court or field like a man amongst boys, destined for greatness, but all the while maintaining a humble respect for the sport and those that play it.”
And that’s it. Congratulations to our winners; you will be contacted this week to work out the shipping of prizes. Thanks again to all those who participated and played along. We learned a lot from this competition and greatly appreciate everyone’s feedback and comments. We’ll use it all when we start cooking up our next competition.
