1. Brand Strategy & Positioning

Eurovision’s 75-year journey has always been about celebrating diversity through shared experience. In Basel, organizers distilled that heritage into the promise “We beat as one,” presenting the contest as an annual cultural ritual rather than a fleeting spectacle. That focus on emotion shaped every choice: the pixel-heart motif symbolizes individual nations joining in a collective pulse, and the tiered audio identity underscores unity with each beat. Embedding a clear emotional promise at the strategy’s core makes every creative decision reinforce the same narrative.

“Our brief was to turn ‘togetherness’ from a slogan into an experience you could see, hear and feel.”

—Alexandra Müller, Eurovision Brand Director

2. Visual Identity & the Living Heart Grid

On 16 December 2024 SRG SSR unveiled “Unity Shapes Love” on the official Eurovision site, introducing a halftone-inspired pixel heart theme art and stage design  .

Art Direction & Inspiration

Art director Artur Deyneuve drew on Basel’s printing heritage, using variably-coloured miniatures of the Eurovision heart to emulate halftone pixelation  . This nod to CMYK processes reinforced a tactile, printed-media feel even on digital screens.

Modular Grid System

Designers at NOT Wieden+Kennedy translated the theme art into a 1 024-cell heart grid, each module bound by Swiss-style alignment rules yet free to animate, rotate and reconfigure. Onstage, a 32×32 LED matrix breathes in sync with live audio; in print, city posters and ticketing materials feature halftone heart fields printed in 4-spot lithography; in digital channels, scalable SVG hearts adapt to any screen size. This living toolkit shows how a flexible identity system can be both globally consistent and locally relevant. 

Local Nods & Contextual Layers

Within the grid, Basel’s landmarks—Rhine bridges, spired rooftops and the silhouette of the Basel Minster—are subtly masked into heart-cluster animations. This embeds a pictorial homage to the host city without disrupting the core motif. Host-city partners accessed a live Figma library containing heart-grid components, color swatches and motion curves, ensuring ease of adaptation across outdoor, environmental and digital applications  .

“We treated the heart like a living organism—every cell had rules but could adapt dynamically to context.”

—Lilia Quinaud, Lead Visual Designer

3. Acoustic Branding & Memory Hooks

Basel’s audio identity serves as Eurovision’s emotional backbone. By designing sound at multiple levels, the contest makes its heartbeat linger long after the final note.

Anthem Production

The main theme, See You Radiate, combines authentic Swiss alphorn samples recorded in alpine meadows with cutting-edge electronic production. Composer Arjuna Kohlstock processed raw alphorn tones through granular synthesis to create evolving pads and textures. These layers rest atop a four-on-the-floor beat that crescendos into uplifting drops, marrying tradition and modernity.

Broadcast Opener

A 15-second sequence introduces viewers to the contest’s energy. Sound designers extracted the anthem’s most memorable four-note motif, then blended it with archival crowd vocals captured at past Eurovision finals. Mid-range compression and equalization ensure clarity on television and streaming services, so this opener feels immediate and engaging in any living room.

"Merging live crowd energy with our core melody creates an instant emotional connection."

—Arjuna Kohlstock, Sound Director

Sonic Micro-Logo

The two-second audio tag consists of two rising notes followed by a heartbeat-like thump. Deployed before each voting segment and at the end of commercial breaks, this concise hook embeds itself in listeners’ minds. Audio editors applied the micro-logo to every camera cut, social video and interstitial clip to maintain consistency across platforms.

Live Performance Integration

On stage, technical crews use grandMA2 lighting consoles and time-code triggers to align the micro-logo with visual effects. During Finland’s fireworks finale, the thump of the sonic tag coincided perfectly with pyrotechnic bursts. Vocalists hear a subtle echo of the motif in their in-ear monitors, weaving the brand identity into their live performance.

Platform-Level Consistency

Whether streamed on Spotify, broadcast on TV or featured in TikTok highlights, every audio element adheres to a unified loudness standard (-16 LUFS online, -24 LKFS broadcast). This rigorous approach to mastering guarantees that Eurovision’s sound remains impactful and recognizable on any device.

By sculpting audio at every scale—from full-length theme to micro-logo—Eurovision 2025 demonstrates how a layered sound identity can become a brand’s most enduring signal.

4. Experiential Branding and Stagecraft

Architecture as Brand Canvas

A 25-metre-wide LED arch traced Basel’s skyline above a runway-style catwalk that reached into the crowd. This physical gesture collapsed the distance between performer and spectator, transforming the venue itself into a brand statement.

Real-Time Video Integration

Behind 750 m² of high-resolution LED tiles sat a Disguise VX 4+ server running Unreal Engine. Live camera feeds, audience sensor data and motion-graphics cues merged on one timeline.

Dynamic Lighting

A network of 4 500 moving-head fixtures and 200 intelligent strobes, all programmed in grandMA3, painted each act with colour and motion. During Switzerland’s opening number, Bluetooth-enabled wristbands in the audience pulsed in time with the stage lights, turning the crowd into a living extension of the pixel heart.

Audio-Visual Sync

Every time the two-second sonic tag played, house lights dimmed and a low-frequency “heartbeat” ripple ran across the LED arch. These multisensory cues reinforced the brand motif at each transition, anchoring audience emotion in sight and sound.

By breaking stagecraft into architecture, video, lighting and audio-visual sync, Eurovision 2025 shows how live environments can become interactive brand interfaces.

Conclusion

Eurovision 2025 in Basel revealed how a brand identity can become a living cultural force when every element, from app interfaces to printed posters, speaks the same visual and emotional language. By expanding the pixel heart motif into a digital watermark, tram wraps, stage lighting and even sonic stings, organisers created a powerful sense of unity that transcended national boundaries, turning a competition into a shared ritual. This shows that a flexible design system, rooted in a simple, recognisable motif, can grow year after year without losing its core essence.

Every interaction, from tapping a heart in the app to spotting a halftone pattern on a city poster, became a moment of collective participation. The two-second sonic tag before voting segments acted like a communal heartbeat, reminding fans that they were part of something bigger than themselves. These micro-moments of cohesion illustrate how emotional consistency across sight, sound and space can forge powerful memories and inspire genuine belonging.

For us lesson is clear: build a brand system that lives and breathes in all channels, that honours local culture even as it speaks a universal language, and that transforms everyday interactions into moments of shared emotion and lasting impact. By doing so you ensure your brand remains both relevant and deeply resonant.