The UEFA Euro 2008 logo is the official tournament emblem for the 2008 UEFA European Football Championship, co-hosted by Austria and Switzerland. The mark was unveiled on 7 June 2005 at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, exactly three years before the tournament’s opening match in Basel.[1]
Design and History
The logo was designed by the London-based design and branding agency English & Pockett, which won the commission after a selection process involving eight competing agencies.[2] The agency had previously created logos for the UEFA Cup and the Champions League final.[3]
The UEFA European Football Championship 2008 brand was produced as a flexible system comprising a variety of logo formats, a visual identity made of six individual and collective graphic icons, including three-dimensional perspectives, and was produced in ten different colour palettes.[4]
The central motif depicts a stylised mountain chain, rendered as a jagged red line, embracing a football. The Alps were chosen as a defining common feature of the two host countries.[5] Austrian Football Association president Friedrich Stickler said the organisers wanted to avoid clichés such as Lipizzaner horses, gentians or Mozart chocolate balls, and instead present a modern, forward-looking image.[2]
Meaning and Symbolism
The word “EURO” beneath the graphic is rendered in two different shades of red, referencing the national colours of both host countries. The mountain chain also appears in red, while the ball is shown in white-grey to green tones, evoking rugged rock landscapes and lush green forests and valleys. The green core of the ball was intended to reflect the importance of nature in the region.[2]
Contemporary press reports described the emblem as using green, red, white and grey, with the “Euro 2008” lettering written in red and white, the symbolic colours of Austria and Switzerland, and green representing the natural environment of the two Alpine countries.[6] UEFA general director Lars-Christer Olsson praised the mark as “strong, with a modern touch,” establishing points of reference to both countries and to football.[2]
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