Reducing the Europa League from 48 to 32 teams and launching the Europa Conference League from the 2021/22 season, UEFA has updated the logo for the former and rolled out an emblem for the latter. The visual identities for both competitions were developed by Turquoise, a branding studio from London.
Turquoise had experience working with the European football union earlier when the studio “built a good understanding of the requirements and needs”, as its creative officer Gareth Mapp says. Developing the UEFA leagues project, Turquoise tried to refresh the UEL branding with a new design which could tell that the league will show more competitiveness even with fewer teams now. With this, the Conference League’s logo should reflect the ideas of openness and inclusiveness.
Both logos share a general design including the Europa Title and Europa Nuova typefaces that save the visual cohesion of the emblems. The difference between them is in the forms of their cups and the colors of the semi-circles – orange for the Europa League (inherited from the competition’s previous emblem) and green for the Conference League. The UEL cup is executed in a simpler way, compared to the old version, distinguished with straight lines and angular geometry, while curved lines prevail in the UECL trophy’s depiction.
Additional branding visuals for both tournaments feature wave motifs – orange and green, respectively. They have to be a reflection of the passionate and energetic atmosphere reigning at stadiums. Fans will be able to see these patterns in football arenas as well as in the graphic design of television feeds.
