Background
Together with Weischer, the GWA Young Board initiated a creative competition for young creatives. The task: to develop a communication concept for Project Zuversicht based on a depth-psychological study on the mood in Germany.

The project is an initiative by #UseTheNews, Initiative 18 and rheingold salon, with the goal of strengthening self-efficacy and social cohesion in Germany.

Karl Anders sent its young talent into the race. Out of 65 teams, our team made it into the final five and presented its concept live in front of a 16-member jury from the communications industry and politics. Our contribution: AGORA FC.

Study results
People in Germany increasingly no longer believe they can make a difference for the country and society. Only 10% of Germans believe they can have an impact. The result: political disillusionment, growing susceptibility to simple answers from the fringes and a society drifting further apart.

But the study also offers hope: 87% of Germans would feel significantly more self-effective if people started genuinely listening to each other again.

Insight
There is already a place where what we want for society actually works: the football pitch.

During European Championships and World Cups, we experience how an entire country comes together and more than 80 million people become one team. People from different backgrounds, professions and realities all pull in the same direction.

And this feeling is not limited to football’s biggest stages. It happens every weekend in 24,000 clubs and on 45,000 football pitches and street pitches across Germany.

Idea
We are founding AGORA FC: a non-profit association that combines football tournaments with democracy education. Football becomes a vehicle for belonging, self-efficacy and social participation.

On the pitch, deliberately mixed teams play an accessible five-a-side format. This brings together people who would otherwise rarely meet. Current and former professional players support the teams as player-coaches. Participants are recruited through schools, clubs and youth institutions.

Off the pitch, AGORA FC creates space for workshops on media literacy, mediation and local politics, for panel talks with experts and for the Agora: a fishbowl format for listening, participation and perspective-taking.

Beyond the tournaments, AGORA FC offers democracy education formats. At its heart is the Ambassador Program, where young people learn key skills and carry them back into their communities.

Creative execution
The name and inspiration come from the Agora, the central assembly and marketplace of the ancient Greek city. It is considered the cradle of democracy.

AGORA FC translates this idea into a contemporary brand design. Typography, color palette and design elements draw on Greek motifs without feeling historicized: deep petrol, warm gold, white, column silhouettes, geometric patterns and reduced forms.

The visual identity combines the emotional power of football with the idea of democratic participation. Classic codes of a football club, such as crests, jerseys and fan scarves, are charged with new meaning.

The result is a design system that invites people onto the pitch, into conversation and into society.