As a fan of both the 49ers and Typography, you can say that this project coming my way was like spotting Bigfoot riding a unicorn. Nobody would believe me if I told them, but nevertheless I know it happened and here's the proof.
Faithful is based on the iconic “SF” monogram introduced in the early 1960’s, and a continuation of the “49ers” logo-type introduced in mid-to late 1980’s. From these few letter-forms Ben (49ers creative manager) and his team endeavored to create the remaining glyphs of the typeface, (surprisingly this had not been done before). When I was brought on to the project Ben presented to me 36 rough vector drawings of the basic alphabet (A-Z) and numerals (0-9). I took that artwork and refined the letter-forms in preparation for programming and developed the typeface into 128 glyphs including punctuation marks, mathematical operators and custom stencil numerals for on-field application.
I used Clarendon as a reference since upon research it looks like that’s what the original brand-marks were derived from. Faithful—in essence, is a modified version of this classic typeface with heavy block terminals in extended width. The result is an exclusive and proprietary work-horse font that can be seen in use at various levels of 49ers communications including publications, social media, stadium signage and on-field applications.
