Players
Bal Foundry · Guillaume Sbalchiero · 2026
A single-weight all-caps blackletter designed for a sports and fashion magazine, tracing its forms back to American Tuscan wood type and the graphic language of team badges and stitched patches.
About
Drawn by Guillaume Sbalchiero, Players was built first as a logotype for the magazine of the same name, with the letter P conceived as a team-style monogram before the design principle was carried through the full alphabet. Heavy strokes and tight rhythm dominate, while carefully sized counters hold legibility within the dense block forms. Its pointed terminals sit at the intersection of nineteenth-century Tuscan display type, Gothic architecture and punk graphics, giving it a range of cultural readings within a single, uncompromising style.
Classification
Originally designed as a magazine logotype, Players draws on mid-nineteenth-century American Tuscan wood type and Gothic architecture, rendering all-caps blackletter forms with pointed terminals and heavy black mass suited strictly to display use.