After the Olympics, the FIFA World Cup is the biggest global sporting tournament around – and its official branding has attracted the world’s attention for decades.
As well as reflecting the essence of the tournament, the logo design also needs to convey elements of the host country – no mean feat for the branding agency that wins the account.
To mark the start of the Russia 2018 World Cup, we’ve taken a look back at eight of the best logos from World Cup tournaments since 1930.
Two tournaments later, the World Cup made it to France – with another beautifully stylised poster replacing the action shot of Uruguay’s offer with a dominant, imposing stance of a footballer conquering the globe.
Little did the world know of the devastating conflict that would be sweeping through France in the following few years, but here in 1938, notions of victory and world domination were confined to the beautiful game.
This was the third and final time a poster represented the tournament, rather than a logo. Compared to some of the more overt ‘national flag’ palettes that followed, the use of red, white and blue is much more conceptual and abstract.
