Rating the 2026 FIFA World Cup city posters: The best, worst of all the hosts

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Lance Wyman is an icon of graphic design. The 88-year old’s work has been part of the American collective consciousness for decades, whether it’s known or not. Maps, signs and cityscapes across the country bear his work. His style — bold, beautiful and simple — has been emulated by younger designers for a half-century.

Wyman, who started his career in the early 60s, produced his most noteworthy work early on. In 1966, he traveled to Mexico, tasked with designing the graphic identity of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.

Wyman spent months in the city, studying its culture. He worked with local designers, picking their brains for ideas and input. Heavily influenced by the Op Art movement of the 1960s and the pre-Columbian art of the host country, Wyman’s identity for the 1968 games is widely considered among the finest pieces of sports design ever created. The lettering for the games alone — the hypnotic, parallel lines and concentric circles — has been displayed in museums and has ended up on countless “mood boards,” still emulated to this day.

Two years later, that lettering was used on what some would consider the most iconic piece of World Cup design in history, the trophy aside: the poster for the 1970 tournament in Mexico. Wyman designed a series of stamps and worked with organizers on other design elements for the tournament.

(Photo courtesy of Lance Wyman)

Reached last year for comment not long after the logo for the 2026 World Cup was released, he was not impressed.

“I don’t think it’s that effective,” Wyman told The Athletic then. “Nothing about it really says ‘soccer’ and it’s not so identifiable when it goes small, so that’s going to be a problem. I imagine when it’s used a lot it’ll be more widely known — but initially, no, it’s not quite a good design, I’d say.”

Wyman’s designs for the Olympics and the World Cup in Mexico are timeless and representative, in a way, of the grand visual thinking that went behind the tournament before it became a far more corporate, soulless affair. The Art Deco-inspired works of 1930 and 1934; the poster for the 1954 tournament in Switzerland, and the accompanying agony of the goalkeeper featured on it; the incredible work of the 1982 tournament in Spain, where the country leaned on some of its greatest-ever artists to get the job done; or the ‘94 tournament in the U.S., where legendary Pop artist Peter Max got the nod.

Things are a lot different nowadays. We haven’t yet seen the 2026 tournament’s official poster, but over the last month, FIFA has rolled out posters for each of the tournament’s 16 host cities, with varying degrees of success. Some are spectacular, others are forgettable and others seem to miss the mark entirely.

Art, of course, is entirely subjective, and there’s always room for disagreement, but we’re going to rate the current crop of World Cup host city posters anyway:

The Good

Toronto

🍁🎨 @FWC26Toronto‘s Official Host City Poster for #FIFAWorldCup 26 is here!#WeAre26

— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) March 28, 2025

Toronto is rich and multicultural and diverse, and it’s long been the home of Italian immigrants. Only a handful of cities, globally, have a larger population of residents of Italian descent, and those immigrants brought a strong appreciation of football with them. Local amateur and semi-professional leagues have long felt the influence of the Italian game. Diego Maradona, who spent a legendary stretch at Serie A side Napoli, once featured for a team in Toronto.

The poster, designed by local artist Dave Murray, seems to borrow heavily from the Futurism movement of the early 20th century, which originated and flourished in Italy. Futurist works of that time have a similar palette to Murray’s work and often celebrated speed and movement, an ideal fit for a work like this. Gerardo Dottori’s work – Partida de Calcio – comes to mind. Fun fact: Dottori, an Italian, was a competitor in the art events at the Summer Olympics in 1930 and 1934. Yes, art used to be an event at the Olympics.

Murray’s work is spectacular on its own, but FIFA has provided an accompanying explainer paragraph, if you’re interested. You’ll recognize the basic structure of this drivel from literally every design explainer ever published in the last 10 years:

“The dynamic design emphasizes the magnitude of the FIFA World Cup, its impact worldwide and soccer’s incredible potential for growth not only in Toronto but across the (greater Toronto area), Ontario and Canada. The grid behind the player represents our city streets and lines on a pitch, as well as the idea of a quilt to symbolize the collection of diverse people and neighbourhoods that come together to make our city special.”

Guadalajara, Mexico City and Monterrey

I’d wondered if the Mexican posters would directly emulate Wyman’s work, but they chose not to – and to great effect. The three compliment each other incredibly well, hitting that sweet spot between modern and classic design to perfection.

Like so many other pieces of design, you discover new facets to this poster every time you look at it. Mexico City is among my favorite places on earth and the artist, Cuemanche, incorporated a ton of iconic pieces of design into this poster. Popocatépetl, the volcano that looms large over the city, crowns the poster, while other smaller details dot the design: a street vendor, a Lucha Libre wrestler and a traditional Aztec warrior all make appearances, as does the Angel of Independence, a prominent downtown monument.

The central focus of the poster, though, is the Azteca, among the world’s most iconic football stadiums, and a football pitch. Wyman, by the way, isn’t entirely absent here: Cuemanche worked in the city’s massive, beautiful subway system into his poster. Wyman himself did all the wayfinding and signage in that system. Can’t escape him if you try.

The posters for Guadalajara and Monterrey follow a similar theme. It’s not hard to see these three displayed together on the wall of a sports bar, or even a living room. They are just fantastic.

Seattle 

🐋🏔️ Introducing the Official #WeAre26 Host City Poster for @FWC26Seattle! #FIFAWorldCup

— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) April 4, 2025

This one just squeaks in, in my view. It’s so wonderfully composed, and the artist, Shogo Ota, has such a unique style of line art. It feels in a lot of ways almost like a woodcut print. What throws me off are the competing styles of hand here — while the waves, whale tail and other elements feel aligned, the soccer ball and mountain in the background feel a little like clip art.

This is still a really, really fantastic effort, and I’m sure there’s someone (maybe the artist himself) who could convince me otherwise.

The Average

Atlanta 

🖌️🖼️ The Official #FIFAWorldCup 26 Poster for @FWC26Atlanta is here!#WeAre26

— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) March 22, 2025

There are some things to like here — it’s a colorful, bold design, and the artist takes some chances, which I far prefer to some of the truly bland stuff that follows. In the end, though, there’s just way too much going on.

It does feel representative of the city, at least, and certainly incorporates a lot of the city and state’s notable iconography — it felt obvious enough we’d see a peach here, but maybe not 43 of them.

Philadelphia

🇺🇸🖼️ The Official #FIFAWorldCup 26 Host City Poster for @FWC26Philly is here!#WeAre26

— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) March 18, 2025

I don’t love this one but couldn’t figure out why, so I turned the reins over to Maggie Famiglietti, a Chicago-based designer who has done dozens of wonderful posters.

“This is pretty clean work,” she wrote. “But it’s hyper boring. I can’t say a bad single thing about it — and yet also I hate it. It looks like corporate subway art.”

We can blame the “clean” aesthetic for the deluge of white kits and bland logo redesigns that permeate modern sports design. Gone are the insane designs of yesteryear, replaced by something that feels a lot more corporate. This poster certainly fits that bill.

It does, however, win the award for “most unhinged poster reveal.” Feast your eyes on the “Philadelphia Flower Show” version of the poster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5cbcIiItWU

New York/New Jersey 

It’s here! The Official NYNJ Poster. 🙌#NYNJPoster #FIFAWorldCup #WeAreNYNJ pic.twitter.com/P54c9HTHeV

— FIFA World Cup 26™ New York New Jersey (@FWC26NYNJ) April 15, 2025

FIFA tapped N.J.-born and Brooklyn-residing artist Rich Tu to design this one, and he did a pretty serviceable job. New York City has no shortage of signature elements, and Tu went with maybe the most obvious of all, the Statue of Liberty.

Tu offered a glimpse into his design process at the unveiling of the poster. FIFA billed the whole host city poster process as a “competition” of sorts, but any ideas you might have about an artist holed up in his studio creating his own personal vision of a poster go out the window when you pull the curtain back a bit.

“They did the thing that a lot of clients do, which is they showed me things that they liked about my work,” Tu told The Athletic’s Melanie Anizdei. “It was like, ‘we like this, and we’d love if it did this.’ And then I was off to the races, and it came together fairly quickly. It was about like, maybe a month and a half of back and forth, like, a lot of conversation about some of the specific elements within the poster – the colors and also some of the iconography within the poster, and also about the history of soccer.”

Tu’s effort is a decent one, but in my view it’s nothing to write home about. He certainly did get one thing right though — when asked to evaluate the other posters, he had this to say:

“I must say, my personal favorites are Toronto — and also (all of) Mexico’s look amazing.”

Vancouver 

A look at Vancouver’s Host City Poster for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, created by local artist Jamin Zuroski.
⁣
Inspired by BC’s natural elements and Indigenous culture, this unique design captures Vancouver and the beautiful game. ⁣#FIFAWorldCup | #WeAre26 pic.twitter.com/t2teVGjkQr

— TSN (@TSN_Sports) April 16, 2025

Easily the most forgettable effort, it has the exact same energy that many of FIFA’s recent World Cup posters has — think of the bland efforts that came out of Qatar and South Africa. The only decent official poster to speak of in recent editions of the tournament came in 2018. The artist’s representation of famed Russian ‘keeper Lev Yashin — done in the country’s trademark postconstructivist art style — was absolutely fantastic.

Dallas

It’s HERE!! Dallas, this is your Official FIFA World Cup 26™ Host City Poster!!#FIFAWorldCup #WeAre26 #WeAreDallas pic.twitter.com/3MyEAxIWNB

— FIFA World Cup 26 Dallas™ (@FWC26Dallas) April 17, 2025

Not bad! It feels like a screenprinted movie poster, which I like, but it also feels poorly composed. Still,this one is easy to imagine on a wall in your den.

While almost all of the explainers for these posters mention diversity, or the merging of different cultures, I’m not seeing anything in either of the Texas posters that alludes to Mexican or Latino culture, which is a miss.

Kansas City

Celebrate soccer, art and the spirit of our region with the official FIFA World Cup 26™ Kansas City Host City Poster! ⚽ 🎨

Selected from more than 100 submissions by artists across Kansas and Missouri, we’re proud to unveil “Woven Together” by Jadie Arnett. This design… pic.twitter.com/bNU1ocBPmD

— FIFA World Cup 26 Kansas City (@FWC26KansasCity) April 6, 2025

The scarf is a really nice touch. Of any of the posters, this is the one that reads the strongest as being soccer-related. There’s also a bit of storytelling here, but the actual artistic execution feels a little bland.

Like Seattle’s, this one straddles the line between average and good.

Boston

Love the Boston poster for the 2026 World Cup

(Via John Rego) pic.twitter.com/6l7NizZedo

— Cameron Tabatabaie (@CTabatabaie) April 6, 2025

Magical realism! We love magical realism! Truly, I love the illustration here. Lots of Boston details — the tall ships, the Tea Party reference, the nod to Cape Cod. I’m not sure what the Lochness Monster has to do with Massachusetts, but I don’t really care.

The illustration itself is pretty fantastic, maybe the best of the lot. What this effort isn’t doing is reading as a poster promoting a World Cup, and that’s a shame. Otherwise, it’s a good one.

The bad

Miami

From print to pitch – Miami, this one’s for you! ⚽🏆

Here is YOUR official FIFA World Cup 26™ Host City Poster, designed by Rubem Robierb! 🤩🎨

Mark your calendars for April 19th to secure your very own FWC26 Miami Host City Poster! 🗓️✍️ pic.twitter.com/2Q0p0wUJmO

— FIFA World Cup 2026 Miami™ (@FWC26Miami) March 25, 2025

There’s so much to work with in Miami, from the city’s blend of art deco, mediterranean revival and neoclassical architecture to the pink and aqua that have formed the unofficial color palette of the place. The surf, the sand, the strong currents of Argentine and Cuban culture that run through the city. Also, the greatest player in the history of the game currently plays there.

Instead, what we have here feels like what would happen if I fed “flamingo playing soccer” into an AI prompt. This one is somehow simultaneously too “on the nose” while also not telling us anything at all.

There’s one positive wrinkle, I guess — they gave the flamingo shin guards. I don’t know exactly why, but that truly kills me.

Houston

✨ The Official @FIFAWorldCup Cup 26™ Houston Host City Poster ✨

Celebrate Houston’s essence with local artist Stephanie Leal! Grab yours now:

🔗 https://t.co/5gUVvqJMrf#WeAre26 #WeAreHouston #FIFAWorldCup pic.twitter.com/bR8wjU2MTA

— FIFA World Cup 26 Houston™ (@FWC26Houston) March 26, 2025

For our international readers, Houston is known as “Space City USA” due to its strong ties to the U.S. space program, which is how we ended up with this motif.

I have a lot of questions here. Why is there a portal to space in downtown Houston? How does one even play soccer in space, in zero gravity? How are this man’s feet not imploding? Are his boots pressurized?

Did you know that we’ve actually sent a professional soccer player to space, by the way? Former NASA astronaut Sonny Carter, who died in 1991, played as a defender for the North American Soccer League’s Atlanta Chiefs in the early 70s. Want to hear something even wilder? Just like the astronaut in this poster, the guy went on a spacewalk. NASA’s “neutral buoyancy” center, where they train astronauts for spacewalks, is named in his honor. I bet the artist who designed this poster didn’t know that. And neither did you.

There are things to like, though, even in the worst of these efforts. The reflection of the World Cup trophy in the helmet’s visor is a nice touch, as is the Texas “lone star” on the captain’s armband. In the end, though, this thing really misses the mark.

San Francisco/Bay Area

🌁⚽️ The Official #WeAre26 Host City Poster for @SFBayArea26 is here!#FIFAWorldCup

— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) March 30, 2025

This is the most forgettable of the bunch. Truly, it looks like the type of art you’d see in an ad on a bus bench. There’s an obvious counterpoint to that argument, which is that, well, that’s exactly what this needs to be. In my view, this is just unimaginative and boring, end of story.

Los Angeles

The official FIFA World Cup 26 Los Angeles™ poster has arrived!

Congrats to Thieb Delaporte-Richard the winner of the Los Angeles World Cup Poster Design Content! This design captures the spirit of LA by blending the excitement of the World Game with our regions’ iconic energy. pic.twitter.com/diV9vjRWtv

— FIFA World Cup 26 Los Angeles™ (@LosAngelesFWC26) March 20, 2025

It might as well be a photo, frankly, which may have been even nicer to look at.

If Miami’s effort felt generated by AI, this one seems generated by an artist at Rockstar Games. It feels less Los Angeles and more San Andreas, the fictional locale in the “Grant Theft Auto” franchise meant to emulate the Angel City. I do think the composition here is clever, but this one feels entirely bereft of any human touch. It’s just a little synthetic for my taste.

I’m likely wrong, though, as I am about most of these. When you start looking at the judging process for these photos, you understand why. In the case of Los Angeles, FIFA says the host city committee employed a panel of five of L.A.’s “most esteemed experts in public art and cultural exhibitions” to select the winner. I’m just a lowly soccer writer, though, and I don’t like this poster.

(Top photos courtesy of FIFA)

This news was originally published on this post .

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