The World Has Ten Words for Goal

The World Has Ten Words for Goal

Every football nation has its own way to shout it. When the ball hits the net, a German yells "TOR!", a Japanese fan yells "ゴール!", and a Turk, a Brazilian, and an Argentine all yell "GOL!". Same moment, same joy, ten different spellings.

That idea became the Goal series.

This summer the whole world came to New York. Every one of those languages is being shouted across the same five boroughs, in bars, on stoops, in living rooms. We wanted a mark that captured that: not one country's crest, but all of them at once, wrapped around a single ball.

The design

At the center sits a distressed, hand-worn football. Around it runs the word for "goal" in ten languages: English, German, Japanese, Arabic, Czech, Haitian Creole, Dutch, Swedish and Norwegian, Korean, and the shared "GOL!" that carries across Turkish, the Romance languages, and much of the Slavic and Nordic world. A bold N and Y flank the ball so it reads as the O in NY.

We kept it to a single color on purpose. A worn matchday sticker, not a polished badge. Something that looks like it's already lived on a jacket for a season.

Getting the details right

Ten writing systems in one ring is harder than it sounds. Each word had to be set in its own script and checked for correct spelling, joining, and punctuation. The Arabic gave us the most trouble. Arabic letters connect to each other, and they read right to left, so the exclamation point belongs on the left. Getting هدف to join properly and sit correctly on a curve took a few rounds, but it matters. If you're going to put ten languages on a shirt, you owe it to each one to spell it right.

Wear it

The Goal series is live now, on tees and eco tote bags, printed to order in a few colorways. Made for the summer the world's game came home to New York.