In a move that no one was expecting, Premier League champions Manchester City have revealed their own custom font that will be used on their kits for the 2024-25 season.
The typeface has been created in collaboration with musician Noel Gallagher, formerly of Oasis, who just so happens to also be a lifelong City superfan. The design is based on Gallagher's handwriting and will be used to denote the players' names and numbers next season.
It began with Gallagher writing out the name and squad number of each and every player in the first-team squad, which in turn was transformed into a bespoke font that will be applied to the new City kits.
While certainly distinctive, there is more than a whiff of the dreaded Comic Sans about it.
Man City revealed their new home 2024-25 kit last month during the run-in of last season, on the same day as title rivals Arsenal. The campaign ended with City winning the English league title for a record fourth consecutive season on the final day.
The design for the jersey from manufacturer Puma features the local "0161" phone dialling code for the city of Manchester, which can be found woven into the detail and trim.
The new kit will bear the hand-drawn typeface when worn by the men's team in every Champions League and domestic cup fixture next season. However, it will not be seen in Premier League as rules stipulate clubs must select their kit lettering and numbering from a range of preapproved style and colour combinations that were introduced last summer.
Many major clubs drum up new custom fonts for use on their official match jerseys. For example, Real Madrid recently rolled out a brand-new Arabesque lettering style to adorn their new pristine white 2024-25 home kit.
Several national teams have also produced unique lettering to accompany their uniform releases, with mixed results.
City striker Erling Haaland's national team, Norway, caused a minor stir last year when they debuted a daring font inspired by ancient Nordic runes to go with their 2024 kits.
While the numbers and letters look amazing in isolation, they are very difficult to read from more than a few feet away, especially when the players wearing the shirts are running around getting on with the business of an actual football match.
Still, why let the fact that a font is barely legible spoil what is otherwise a lovely little bit of creative design?