Ahead of the start of the 2018-2019 season, German Bundesliga club FC Schalke 04 switched from Adidas to Umbro. Back then, they also revealed a new typeface for their jerseys. Now we have been made aware by font designer Christoph Koeberlin from @sportsfonts_com that the Schalke 04 font is not unique but the same as the typeface of a famous German company.
FC Schalke 04 Kit Typeface
The S04 typeface is not a bespoke font designed for the club but the same font as the one of German car maker Mercedes-Benz.
The Mercedes-Benz font has not been designed by Daimler-Benz but by Kurt Weidemann. It is called Corporate A-S-E. Corporate A-S-E is a three-part typeface was created by Kurt Weidemann between 1985 and 1989 as (initially) exclusive corporate typeface for Daimler-Benz.
Weidemann described the basic characteristics of the typeface as follows: "timeless balance, neutral, maximum legibility, economical character spacing, printability on different types of paper in all important processes (up to screen, flexo and laser printing), reading quality on screens, in illuminated advertising and in different image resolution processes and unit plans (grids, lines, dots-per-inch) of the publishing systems.
The typeface of Schalke 04 features small letters, interestingly. This makes it very obvious that the typefaces are the same, just with different thicknesses.
Before Schalke 04 switched to the current typeface, they had not the Mercedes font.
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