The NFL season starts this week, and I recently discovered my font Beachwood is hitting the field as the branding font for a couple of NFL teams, as well as in a fun promo for the NFL itself!

The Buffalo Bills are using Beachwood this season in graphics for their social media, website and even the 300+ page media guide.

I love the way they're combining all of the widths and weights. Excellent work, Bills crew. I think this is your year!

Next I spotted Beachwood in the graphics for "The Celly Studio", an ad hyping the start of the football season with a fictional (or is it?!?) studio where players practice their touchdown celebration moves. You can watch it here.

This one hurts. My whole life, there is no team in sports I've hated as much the Cowboys.

From the egocentric star on their helmet and "America's Team" nickname, to their endlessly boring run of Super Bowl wins in the '90s, and the way they can't seem to match the blues and silvers in their uniforms.

But there's my Beachwood font in the Cowboys website and social media feed, looking so cool in a glitched-out digital style, and I am simultanously thrilled and sick to my stomach.

Has my hatred turned to... love?

Every season the coaches get new sweatshirts in which to stalk the sidelines, and when I first saw the lettering on this season's designs, I thought it was a modified version of my Comicraft font Elephantmen Tall! Maybe combined with the W from Phases on Stun?

But further research (and its unique pointy-cornered A) confirmed it's actually Jim Parkinson's delightful Fresno, a style of font he called "gaspipe" because of the straight lines and squared-up corners.

Jim's similar Hotel, Motel & Matinee Gothic fonts were a go-to in my early Comicraft designs, especially for Batman and Captain America projects. So I'm not surprised his work influenced my later type designs. He was even better known for iconic logo designs including Rolling Stone, Esquire and the Washington Post.

Jim passed away last year, and though he was a fellow SF Bay Area native, I regret we were never able to meet. You can find his fonts at Myfonts and Adobe Fonts, and are being gradually updated and maintained by a mutual friend, type creator extraordinare Delve.