2018 World Cup logo: Roger the Alien or Finding Nemo?

The logo for the 2018 World Cup in Russia was unveiled by Sepp Blatter this week, with some help from cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station, but inevitably not everyone approved of the design.

The emblem, which was beamed onto the side of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow during the launch, depicts the World Cup trophy in red and blue, the colours of the Russian flag, with gold trim.

Fifa president Blatter, who orchestrated the launch on Russian TV on Tuesday evening, said the logo showed Russia's "heart and spirit".

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Unsurprisingly the design agency behind the emblem, Brandia Central, was rather more effusive, describing Russia as "the land of magic". It explained that the design had "a sense of elevation, of ascending, like a spacecraft" and that the design was partly inspired by the shape of a Sputnik satellite, complete with "magic windows".

Many critics of the design agreed that it had an out-of-this-world feel, but compared it to the character Roger the Alien from cartoon show American Dad.

Others saw rather more prosaic similarities, likening the design to that of an electric shaver and a moptop Beatles-style haircut.

There were plenty of other cartoon comparisons, including characters from Finding Nemo and the Super Mario games, as well as to Edward Munch's famous painting The Scream, althgough when compared to previous designs this one got off relatively lightly.