This Designer “Fixed” The 2026 World Cup Logo, And People Want FIFA To Hire Him
One designer took FIFA’s own brief, three co-host countries, one tournament, and solved it a completely different way.
The intent, in his own words. Abhilash, founder of UAE-based studio Brandstormer Media and the creative voice behind @mr.brandstormer, built a full alternate identity for the FIFA World Cup 26 mark. His caption lays out the goal directly: make the logo feel less corporate and more like a celebration of football, culture, and national pride, with every design choice built around a specific reason.
The Core Idea
One symbol built to hold three identities at once. Where FIFA’s official mark keeps its central logo neutral and pushes country detail out to sixteen separate host-city logos, this redesign folds all three nations directly into the numeral itself. The “2” becomes the United States, the connecting stroke becomes Canada, and the “6” becomes Mexico.
What Works
One consistent numeral structure holds three completely different visual languages together without feeling disjointed
USA folds a Statue of Liberty crown and stars-and-stripes into the negative space of the numeral
Canada swaps that crown for antlers wrapped around a maple leaf, with a skyline tower and pine mountains lower in the form
The system extends convincingly across jerseys, tumblers, and billboards—the point at which many speculative redesigns begin to fall apart
How People Reacted
The reel didn’t just attract views; it sparked a debate in the replies, and most of the reaction skewed positive.
The loudest reaction was people asking FIFA to hire him. One comment saying simply “FIFA…give this man a job” pulled in over 95,000 likes on its own, with others echoing it directly, tagging @fifaworldcup and calling for him to get the job outright.
Several designers called out the craft specifically. Comments praised the unified three-in-one concept as “perfect,” with others calling the execution “brilliant work” and saying it deserved far more recognition than it was getting.
The criticism, where it exists, is specific rather than dismissive. A few commenters, including other designers, felt Mexico’s symbol leaned on cliché, a sun-and-sombrero shape, when the flag’s eagle and serpent or the Independence Angel monument would have carried more weight. One also pointed out that Canada sitting between the US and Mexico in the stacked version doesn’t track geographically, since Canada doesn’t sit between the two on an actual map.
A smaller thread pushed back on the premise entirely, arguing that the redesign is being judged against the wrong brief: FIFA’s mark was never meant to function as a standalone piece of art, but as a flexible canvas for motion graphics and city-by-city variation.
Why FIFA’s Original System Still Holds Up
It was never designed to be the emotional centerpiece by itself, it’s a neutral, endlessly reproducible hub sitting underneath sixteen separately designed host-city logos, plus posters and a full “We Are 26” campaign
Placing a photorealistic trophy inside a flat graphic system was a genuine risk, and it’s the first World Cup emblem to attempt it
As one commenter put it, a logo is not an identity, and once you see the full system built around it, the restraint in the core mark starts to make more sense
The Bottom Line
Both approaches solve the same challenge in opposite ways. FIFA kept its center neutral and allowed sixteen city marks to carry the personality. This redesign pulled that personality into the center and used one structural rule to unify the system. Neither approach is necessarily wrong; they were built for different jobs. The disagreement in the comments—Mexico’s symbolism, Canada’s placement, and whether a logo needs a narrative at all—is exactly what makes the project worth more than a scroll-past.
What do you think? Good redesign, or does the original still win? Share this post with a designer friend and voice your views in the comments below.
