Overarm

Hello to you too

You’ve made it this far, which I can’t help feeling is an excellent start.

I’m Tom, a British designer now based in Singapore. My work usually comes back to the same thing: storytelling. Whether it is graphic design, photography, or the very site you find yourself on now,

Since graduating, I’ve worked in a design agency in London, moved to Singapore, and spent time in the worlds of events and coffee, which may be less relevant, buuttt it’s my website, so it stays.

I’m interested in work that gives people something to engage hence why I’m drawn to modular design. It feels alive. It can be moved through, fiddled with, affected, and responded to, whether physical, digital, or somewhere in between.

Lately, I’ve been exploring UX, while photography has stayed close by. I’m especially interested in how places feel, how people move through them, and the details that make somewhere feel like itself.

Anyway, enough talking from me. Have your way with the site, and if you want to chat, the usual channels are below.

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Brief

The brief was to design a custom typeface inspired by the visual language of sport, exploring how the shapes, movement, and structure found in sporting environments could inform letterform design. That meant studying things like field and court markings, sports equipment, and the geometry created through athletic motion, then translating those forms into a cohesive typographic system.

Alongside the typeface, the brief called for a specimen book showcasing the character set, using layouts that reflect the rhythm, structure, and energy of sport.

Idea

I started by researching visual forms found in sport, working through a collection of sporting photography books. I picked out a range of images and gradually stripped them back to their most essential shapes, from the curved lines of a velodrome track to the linear simplicity of a pool cue.

Those distilled forms shaped the construction of the typeface, turning sporting geometry into a set of clear, structured letterforms.

For the specimen book, I took inspiration from the ticket strips handed out at sporting events, using that format to guide the layout and pacing of the publication. It keeps the connection to sport front and centre while giving the typeface a tactile, recognisable way to be presented.

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