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Berlin (pte051/16.01.2003/16:26) - Eleven design agencies have announced they are planning to come up with an alternative logo for the 2006 World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/de/021219/1/c26.html in Germany following massive criticism of the current "three smiling faces" logo. Backed by Germany's Art Directors Club http://www.adc.de/ , which advises on creative art in advertising, the agencies will present their alternative in March.
The current logo, entitled "Celebrating Faces of Football", was unveiled in November last year to ridicule in some media. Designed by London firm Whitestone and Munich based company Abold it features three smiling faces. Brazilian newspaper 'O Globo' said the logo's three faces were "of ecstasy pills".
German design professors Fons Hickmann and Klaus Hesse also attacked the logo. Hesse said: "The logo is simply ridiculous. Three years of ridiculousness ahead of the World Cup is not a good signal. We don't want a silly World Cup but a good one - right from the outset."
And Hickmann added: "After years of employing the same graphic studios a certain kind of factory blindness has grown among FIFA officials. We want to put German design quality in its rightful place." A spokesman for the World Cup 2006 organising committee said there would be no change of logo. He said: "We are happy with the existing logo unveiled last autumn and the committee has nothing to do with this move by designers."
World football supremo FIFA President Joseph Blatter and German football legend Franz Beckenbauer have backed the current logo. Beckenbauer, president of the 2006 World Cup committee, said: "The casual and happy character in the faces represents the spirit of the next FIFA World Cup in a new and surprising manner."
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