Seeing as I posted last week about my work on the England 2018 World Cup bid, I thought I’d dig out this glimpse of the American bid identity, which has been designed by Pentagram in New York.

I really like it, and it’s strikingly similar to some of the identity work I did for the England bid which didn’t see the light of day (and which I’m not allowed to show you, sorry). As it stands, it still shares some common DNA, the custom typeface playing a central role in the identity, a campaign tagline about community based on a play of words. Even the two-tone colours are close to the England United colour palette which our host cities have been provided with.

There’s a similar tension between the bid logo and the campaign identity, although I think the balance between the two is better on the England offering so far. Interestingly, Pentagram are also designing all the bid materials themselves, whereas the England identity is being rolled out by various agencies across the country as and where needed, so is already unavoidably looking less coherent.

But hang on a minute, even I, as a football agnostic know that the USA hosted the World Cup in 1994, which is fairly recently. Surely England deserve it, having waited over 40 years…?

Check out the US bid website here…

…but obviously don’t vote for them.