While some cling to the idea that the World Cup is all about the football, even FIFA seems to be unsure these days. This year's final was deemed to require a half-time show featuring Madonna, Shakira and Justin Bieber.
One of the most controversial non-sporting incidents in the tournament came at the end of the Argentina vs England semifinal. Argentine players were photographed celebrating their victory in a historically tense confrontation while holding up a banner thrown by a fan. 'Las Malvinas son Argentinas', it read, in a reference to Argentina's claim to the Falkland Islands.
While FIFA announced that it would investigate whether its rules against political slogans were breached, an artist got to work making the message instantly reproducible. They've turned the letters from the banner into a font design.
Malvinas Sans is already going viral in Argentina. The artist @juanma_artwork digitalised the forms of the banner's hand-painted lettering using Calligraphr to create a set of letters, numbers and additional symbols
His Instagram post above has already racked up over 46,000 likes, and the artist has made the font available as an otf. file via Google Drive so anyone can use it to write their own messages of protest (see our piece on how to install fonts on Windows and how to add fonts in Photoshop). Juanma says he's working on how to incorporate more characters, such as the Spanish 'ñ'.
In the post's caption, the artist frames the font as "typeface born from the forbidden”.
He says the message is "about memory, identity, and keeping alive the discussion over a nation's sovereignty. It's not about celebrating an absurd war. It reminds us that history is still unresolved. Because banning a phrase doesn't end a debate. Sometimes, it makes it even more necessary”.
Argentina might not have shone in their defeat to Spain in the final on Sunday, but their world cup campaign has turned a hotel bed sheet smuggled into Atlanta Stadium in a fan's trousers into a design icon.
"The people who wrote on that bedsheet in their hotel were unintentionally creating a national typeface born of the soul, of the impossible, of disobedience, passion and memory," one person writes in the comments.
