Hot Type designs a variable sans serif type family for Sofascore, inspired by raw data

For 23 million football lovers across the globe, Sofascore is the go-to app for accessing live scores, results and stats. As an information-heavy resource, having a type family that’s accessible yet engaging is an essential component of its core design system. To complete such a family for an expansive rebrand of the app, London Design Studio and Sofascore’s creative teams enlisted the deft hand of the Croatian typography studio, Hot Type.

The studio, led by Marko Hrastovec, is a natural choice for the project. With over eight years of experience, Marko’s main aim is to provide his clients with “fitting typographic solutions”. And so, to engage with the needs of the Sofascore platform, Hot Type created a variable sans serif type family inspired by raw data and a numbers-heavy approach to sports, “utilising robust logo details and low-contrast modulation”, explains Marko.

To create a “variety of brand touchpoints”, the family comes in three weights – regular, medium and bold – and is structured around normal and condensed styles. As well as creating a rich typographic spectrum, Marko says the variation allows for “seamless typesetting”, and takes into consideration the eventuality of longer team and player names needing to be set in limited containers across Sofascore’s various visual aspects. Moreover, with Sofascore relying so heavily on numerical data, the Hot Type team spent a lot of time working on the numbers. To accentuate their prominence, Marko explains that “even rounds are flattened to become vertical stems”, resulting in an “over-exaggerated effect”.

This attention to detail can be seen throughout the whole project, with Marko predicting future problems in all aspects of application. From the very beginning of the project, the team worked with both “technical and visual constraints” to ensure the type family matched the vertical proportions of the previously used font, Roboto. This was to ensure that in-house teams at Sofascore could smoothly transition from one to the other, avoiding baseline shifts when replacing.

The studio also took into account the various screens that the type elements would be viewed on. While predominantly existing as an app, the platform also exists in large screen form, with a website and social media platforms. For this, the team zoomed in on the finer details. “Along with matching shapes to the rest of the branding elements, we ensured that the type performs great on small sizes on screens,” says Marko. “Therefore, many small details serve both purposes. For instance, flat bridges in diagonal joints are barely visible in small sizes, but open up crucial space to keep the letters legible. On the other hand, such details pop more when set big, adding to the overall machined character.”

Leaving no typographic stone unturned, Hot Type’s family for Sofascore is a perfect example of how to pay close attention to details, ensure every avenue or eventuality has been explored and get a grip of the numbers.