Play Euro Stories – Posters

We were approach by Play to produce a series of posters to celebrate the European Football Championships, taking place across the continent in 2021. The brief for the project required us to tell the story of unforgettable moments in Euro's history through design.

We selected 10 of our favourite Euro stories, a goal, a match or a moment of individual significance and created a series of posters to celebrate these stories. At the end of the Euro2020 we created a final piece in the series based on the standout moment from the tournament as voted for on social media.

Each concept graphically represents the individual story through a consistent visual language and features a colour scheme relevant to the country involved, combined with elements of each national flag. This language gives a feel to the posters that brings them together as a set, while still maintaining a sense of individuality.

Concepts behind the posters:

Panenka – Czech flag with a ball being ‘chipped’ over a representation of a goalkeeper.

Suker lob – Croatian kit checkerboard with ball being lobbed over goalkeeper who was famous for making a star shape as part of his technique.

Van Basten volley – Deconstructed graphic of the famous goal featuring player positions, kit colours and the flag providing the direction of travel taken by the ball.

Le Carre Mágique – The Magic Square was the name given to the French midfield from 1984. The design features flag colours adapted in a pattern of magical significance.

Zlatan volley – Illustration of the Swedish flag, doubling as a goal and indicating the positions of the players and the ball.

Nine-goal thriller – A combination of the French and Yugoslav flags to represent the famous nine goal shoot out in 1960.

Magic Monday – 14 goals scored in two matches by 4 teams, graphic representation of flags and the final score in each game.

Danish wonder – Illustrating the Danish flag with elements from the kit to represent the most unexpected of wins in 1992.

Head or tails – This idea represents the Italian flag and the coin toss used to settle the 1968 semi-final.

Greece stuns Europe – Using the Greek flag, this design represents the unbreakable defensive formation that led Greece to win Euro 2004.

Golden goal – This graphic illustrates the infamous golden goal win in 1996, featuring the positioning of the goalkeeper and the final shot, combined with a subtle graphic of the German flag.