| Introduction
Germany 1996
Willem II 2002
Real Madrid 2003
AC Milan 2004
Chelsea 2004
Roda JC 2004
FC Utrecht 2004
Ajax 2004
Cameroon 2004
Italy 2004
Sporting 2004
Bayern München 2005
Schalke 04
Real Madrid 2005
FC Twente 2005
NAC/Vitesse 2005
Italy 2006
Netherlands 2006
Sevilla 2006 | | In the national competition the team of Chelsea (London, England) uses the shirt numbers prescribed by the FA. But in international games different shirt numbers are used. These special numbers —also used by Celtic— are characterised by an inline. It is quite common to use figures with an outline, but the inline is a rather new phenomenon on sports shirts.
Apart from the inline, the figures used by Chelsea are very dull. They are based on a rectangle with rounded corners. The shapes of these figures are forced into this geometric straitjacket and look quite weird. Especially 4 and 3 are typographic bastards. As I could not trace a typeface containing these figures, I have drawn some look-a-likes following the same principle.
Because of their extraordinary shapes these figures can be used for branding. But in the mean time they just look ugly and raise the question how much the shape of —for instance— 3 can deviate from the written figure and still claim to be nothing more or less than exactly that figure. | |  | |
