Ooh aah… just a little bit

What’s not to like about the Eurovision Song Contest? It comes around every May and brightens our lives with eclectic sounds, visuals, performances and dance. The quality ranges from tragic to terrific and anyone willing to suppress snobbish musical opinions can usually find at least one gem amongst the 40+ international offerings. As a graphic designer, I always look forward to seeing how the host country will take the static Eurovision logo and build on it to reflect their own culture and identity.

This year Azerbaijan are hosting the show in Baku after they won it last year with ‘Running Scared’ by Ell and Nikki. Do you remember it? The brand and theme has been announced and they want you to ‘Light Your Fire’. It will be summer by the time we tune in, so I’m hoping I won’t need to, but they’re taking this really seriously and have even created a mini-epic all about the logo and how it is a reflection of Azerbaijan – land of fire.

I like the logo, I think it’s a nice development and one of the best we’ve seen in years. You can see a few of the more recent ones HERE. Like any design, it inevitably reminded me of something else, there isn’t anything 100% original left to design, there are only so many ways you can position shapes, colours and words to create something and I’m sure this is a coincidence but it does resemble Nagano’s 1998 Olympic logo, just a little bit. Look closely at the abstract figurative shapes.

What do you think? Nil point or a decent douze?

  • Andrew C

    January 30, 2012

    The two are similar but I think it is a case of there being nothing new under the sun – and great minds will think alike – there are only so many good solutions to similar problems. They are both obviously influenced by Liverpool Active City too. Looking at the retrospective of Eurovision logos, I think Stockholm 2000 was my favourite – quite a ‘brave’ choice though. Running Scared still sounds strong – and this led to an investigation of new buildings in Baku, which made me want to go there. Not only the brand new (only just started!) Crystal Hall being built for Eurovision but the ‘Flame Towers’ and a very striking new Zaha Hadid building: http://www.zaha-hadid.com/architecture/heydar-aliyev-cultural-centre/
    Fantastic – I now want to go to Baku – where is Azerbaijan? If only my life was like an edition of Wallpaper*…

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