UEFA built the Europa League brand from its trophy's hammered metal

The Europa League, Europe's second-tier club competition founded in 1971, kept its trophy logo but had a visual system stretched thin across broadcast, apps, social, website and print.

A jagged orange 'energy wave' polygon textured like the trophy's hammered triangular sides frames scores and imagery, travelling city to city in TV titles.

Turquoise kept orange and black but widened the palette with light and dark orange and a rich black, cut a bespoke slab serif (Europa Title) with angled serifs and one iteration set on black for 'rawness and attitude', and built an app packaging the assets for broadcasters. MassiveMusic composed a new anthem mixing modern and classical elements.

Rolled out from May 2018 across broadcast, social, apps, website, print guidelines, posters, uniforms and merchandise. Design Week commenters immediately compared the orange-and-black look to Duracell and Strongbow.

In May 2018 the UEFA Europa League revealed a new identity by London design consultancy Turquoise. The logo — the trophy with the league name beneath it — stayed unchanged; everything around it was rebuilt.

The centrepiece is a jagged, mottled orange 'energy wave', shaped and textured after the trophy's triangular hammered-metal sides. It works as a holding device for text and imagery, frames match graphics on TV, and in animated form travels 'dynamically through different European cities' in game title sequences to tell 'the story of a European adventure', symbolising the emotional highs and lows on and off the pitch.

Supporting elements: a widened palette (light orange, dark orange, rich black), the bespoke slab serif Europa Title with angled serifs, one type iteration set against black for rawness and attitude, a broadcaster app that packages the assets and shows how to apply them, and a new anthem by MassiveMusic. The identity, UEFA said, embraces the competition's energy and its 'unpredictable' nature.

One physical object — the trophy — generates the entire system: wave shape, surface texture, palette and type attitude all trace back to it.

The identity was designed as motion first: the wave travels between cities in title sequences rather than sitting on letterhead.

The broadcaster app is the unglamorous half that makes rebrands stick — assets packaged with instructions for the people who actually use them nightly.

Derive the whole identity from an object the brand already owns: the trophy's hammered triangles generated the texture, colours, type angles and motion, so every element argues its own legitimacy.

The identity rolled out across broadcast and online platforms, apps, the website, print brand guidelines and marketing materials including posters, uniforms and merchandise. Readers on the Design Week piece joked that the orange-and-black palette read as Duracell batteries or Strongbow cider.