Fabric of England kits, show racism the red card ➜

As the England mens football team marches onward into their World Cup quarter final match with France in Qatar, a new take of the England team shirt has been unveiled. The Fabric of England jersey has been created by McCann London for Show Racism the Red Card (SRtRC). Designed in response to the despicable racist abuse several of the England players received at the end of the Euros in 2021, it highlights the mixed heritage of the teams players, the diverse diasporas of our nation and frankly makes for what, it has to be said, is a far cooler kit than anything the team currently wears.

Could the font be more British? ➜

One might imagine this question falling from the mouth of a po-faced Nigel Farage as he reviews the packaging of his newly released Red, White and Blue Great British gin range. Unbelievably that is a thing. The ideal Christmas gift for mildly racist grandfolk everywhere. We're not tarnishing the Drop with a link to it here but Google away. Anyway, the answer to the question is a very emphatic yes. Yes Nigel, thanks to F37Foundry, we can in fact make the font much more British. With 7 (very decent to be fair) fonts to go at, your typeface can now feel more British than a Mini Cooper doing donuts around Trafalgar Square.

Viva Magenta – colour of the year 2023 ➜

We know the design industry can be a bastion of bullsh!t. We like vociferous verbosity as much as the next agency, especially when it comes to rationalising a creative response, but we doff our cap to Eley Cheng, Pantones Vice President, who, upon unveiling their colour of the year for 2023 proclaimed: “The colour represents the attitude, lifestyle, the dreams present across the world in a given moment in time. A call to courage, it is an invitation for us to experiment and to share. This colour merges the warmth of the natural world with the endless rich possibilities of the digital space. It deepens our mode of self-expression. It gives us the assurance and motivation to stay open.” Or you could say, it's basically red mate.

Typeface faux pas from KIA ➜

More fun with fonts. This time in the form of car manufacturer KIA, who has dropped something of a colossal clanger while proudly launching a brave new brand refresh. The cutting edge sawtooth typographic design is modern and sleek, with the only issue being it's not entirely legible and is being misread by potential punters. Rather than emboldening the brand it seems they have unwittingly introduced a new competitor to the game with, according to Google search data, 30,000 people a month now searching KN cars.

It's beginning to look a lot like gridmas! ➜

In the last issue of the Drop we shared a handy list of potential Christmas gifts to please any design darlings in your life. This issue, allow us to present the Christmas cracker to ruler them all. Wah, wah waaah! Thats right, a cracker with some serious OCD aesthetic. There's something gloriously gratifying about monochrome grids and geometric patterns. Do we really need a smooth wooden sphere in our lives? Er, no. Do we want one our desks? Hell yeah! Cracker tat never looked so good.


Served straight-up fortnightly.

With a slice of insight and garnished with lots of links we think you'll like.