A Fairley fought contest

The next iteration of The World Games, a multi-sport event for non-Olympic sports, is set to be held in China next year. With over 3,500 logo ideas submitted from around the globe, what’s the story behind the winning design? David Craik investigates.

Whether it is putting up shelves in a bedroom, cooking a new recipe or designing an award-winning logo for a major world event, it can be nervous asking those closest to you, “Well, what do you think?”.

When that person is a five-year-old boy just returned home from school, then get ready for an honest opinion.

Happily for John Fairley, Sydney, Australia-based designer, his son Orson provided him with the perfect validation to continue his ultimately successful attempt in creating a winning logo design for next year’s World Games in Chengdu, China.

“My family have always been the champions of my work,” Fairley says. “Representing a giant panda in this design was a big tick for me given its special role in Chinese and Chengdu life. I thought, after playing around with a few shapes, that I had the outline of a panda, but I needed the acid test. I do a lot of drawing with my older son Orson, so one day when he came back from school, I asked him what he could see on Daddy’s computer screen. He immediately cried ‘Panda!’ and I thought ‘Well, if Orson can see it, surely other five-year-old kids and even 55-year-old kids would see it as well!’”

The global competition, which saw Fairley emerge successful from a total of 3,562 entries, was launched by the Chengdu 2025 Local Organising Committee (LOC) for the 12th edition of The World Games last December. It came at a pivotal moment in Fairley’s life.

Having spent most of his 20-plus-year career founding or working for agencies in London such as Creation London and Jellyfish, Brit Fairley and his Sydney-born wife had recently decided to make a post-pandemic move to Australia following the birth of their second child.

“We wanted to change our world,” says Fairley. “I started contacting headhunters in Sydney and Melbourne because I believed that in a new market it would be better to get a staff job than go straight into independent practice.”

This led to Fairley being appointed head of design for Australia and New Zealand at Dentsu Creative, beginning his role at the start of 2021. Just two years later, however, given the global economic downturn and internal changes at the firm, he was part of a company-wide redundancy programme.

“I had already been thinking about starting up on my own so now I had the opportunity and time to do just that,” Fairley explains. “I have always straddled design and advertising but always with a bias to design. That is my foundation. I have an aesthetic way of looking at life.”

As such, independent design practice Fairley Graphic was born in March 2024, with Fairley looking for his first contracts via his existing APAC network and online.

“One thing I did was to look for design competitions which could give me and my work some exposure,” he says. “The World Games opportunity came up via a Google feed and I thought, ‘Well, why not?’. I love sport and have always been a fan of those iconic designs created by phenomenal designers for the Olympic Games. The World Games [see box] is for non-Olympic sports so I also liked the quirkiness of that.”

The brief for the logo design competition was, Fairley explains, relatively straightforward.

“They wanted the design to reflect the international spirit of the Games and the inclusivity and diversity of 100 nations and 5000 athletes coming together,” he says. “But they also wanted it to reflect the cultural heritage of China and specifically the host city Chengdu as well as being visually appealing and memorable.”

The first stage in Fairley’s process was to research everything he could – either online or by popping down to the local library – about The World Games, previous logos, China, Chengdu and associated cultural references. “Research always informs the opening development of my process. I find the nuts and bolts very interesting and believe that the more research I do the better the final outcome,” he says. “It usually takes me around four days to a week carrying it out. I always spend more time on research than design.”

He discovered that Chengdu is world famous for giant pandas and is the location of a huge research base on the animal. He also looked at local flora and fauna as well as specific Chinese symbols. In addition, by serendipity, Fairley was speaking to someone at the time, on an entirely different subject, when he mentioned the Chengdu competition.

“They excitedly told me that they had just visited the city and that it is a really happy and spirited place,” he adds.

Fairley says that he “grabbed” all of these different elements and “joined them up in my design mind in the most reductive way possible”.

The circular shape of the design was one of the first blocks representing the global nature of the competition. The use of arrows also symbolised athletes coming together from around the world as well as the “shared journey towards athletic excellence and camaraderie”.

The top part of the design incorporated the facial features of the giant panda. The centre of the logo represented the Chinese knot which symbolises unity, prosperity and luck.

In addition, the overall design is inspired by the hibiscus flower – Chengdu’s city flower – through the seamless integration of the giant panda and the Chinese knot, to incorporate the essence of Chengdu into The World Games.

“I designed the top part with the panda features first. I started pushing circles, triangles and squares around my screen,” explains Fairley. “I turned half circles around which started to look like the ears of a panda and then flipped two triangles around which looked like drooping panda eyes and one for its nose. It was a simple configuration – two half circles and three triangles – but it was a real eureka moment. I took that panda shape then repeated it in a circle for the final design. I love shapes that repeat!”

As for the choice of colours, the black and white at the top of the design represents the panda, the red is synonymous with China and prosperity, the green reflected a sense of the natural landscape and the gold represented victory.

Fairley says that the design process took around three days before he sent off his submission – along with a presentation deck explaining the thinking behind the work. “I knew I wasn’t going to be able to better the design. It really worked for me,” he says.

The Committee agreed contacting Fairley soon after to say that his design was amongst the final five contenders. The next stage was an online public vote in which Fairley’s design came out victorious with 56,000 clicks.

“I was completely flabbergasted considering how many entries there had been. My wife and my mother-in-law kept saying they couldn’t believe it,” he laughs.

Since the award Fairley has been busy with PR around his success but is already seeing some traction for his nascent business.

“It was such a lovely thing to happen at a time when I had just started up,” he says. “It gives me an opportunity to do more work in the APAC region off the back of it. Next year the design will be everywhere so that will really boost my profile.”

Fairley is also waiting to hear whether he has been successful in winning the competition for the World Games mascot and slogan which is expected to be announced this August.

“Let’s see what happens,” he says. Whatever the result, Fairley is keen to extoll the benefits of competitions particularly for independent designers. “Sometimes there is a feeling that doing open competitions for design is a bit of a lottery. Some designers think they should get paid for their work and there should be a due process whilst others feel too lofty to give it a try,” he says. “My advice would be to stay curious. If there is an opportunity to create and show your design skills and think differently about a new culture or approach, then take it.”

Fairley is already planning his family’s trip to Chengdu next year. “It will be really exciting to see the logo on banners, bags, keyrings and even drink cups!” he says. “The world is going through a tough time so to create something which is celebratory is really important. If someone looks at the logo and thinks it’s cute or sweet and smiles, then I have done my job. Design can change people’s perceptions. That is its power.”