Magical Athlete

Published February 12, 2026

Magical Athlete is a chaotic racing game that's fast, dumb, and without a doubt, the only game where you can race a baby versus a banana. The original version of the game, designed by Takashi Ishida in 2003, was beloved by serious gamers for its fantastic gameplay, but a bit lost when it came to aesthetic direction; not only was the board difficult to read, but it didn't reflect the joyous energy of the game.

For this new edition, the mechanisms of the game were expertly updated by Richard Garfield, game designer and creator of Magic: The Gathering—but that still left a big question mark as to how the game should look and feel. To help evoke the simultaneously simple and wacky nature of the game, I decided to lean on simple shapes and primary colors for the graphic design.

Our team knew from the start that the game had to be profusely illustrated, and our interest in 1970s illustration like Richard Hefter’s Shufflebook and Sweet Pickles series, Heinz Edelmann’s work for The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, and Peter Max’s psychedelic color, led us to work with the exceptional Angela Kirkwood on the artwork.

The game is predominantly set in Grilli Type’s Flaire. Its “Extra” and “Basic” variations meant we could dial up pizazz when needed, as on the character names on cards, while also relying on the Basic as a heavy-lifting sans serif in spots with dense amounts of text like the rulebook. The external box follows the system devised by SMLXL, which exclusively uses the book weight of Lineto’s Supreme. The logo and board typography is hand-lettered by illustrator Angela Kirkwood.

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