The One Love logo features a heart, a symbol of love. This sentiment is addressed to everyone who needs support, primarily people who are subjected to discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, and other differences. The emblem is dedicated to six colors.
Meaning and History
Although the heart in the One Love logo was colored to match the LGBT flag, its colors do not match the flag’s. The campaign, which stands against all forms of discrimination, featured a symbol that represented different groups of people.
- Red, black, and green represent the African race. This is the palette of the Pan-African flag adopted in 1920. Marcus Mosiah Garvey, leader of the worldwide black movement, created it. The Ethiopian state symbolism inspired the tricolor.
- Pink, yellow, and blue were derived from the pansexual flag, challenging societal prejudices. This color combination began to be used online around 2010.
What is One Love?
One Love is an international campaign to fight all forms of discrimination. It emerged in 2020 when fans wrote an open letter condemning racism in Dutch football. This appeal was published by many media outlets and served as inspiration for the logo, a multicolored heart. European football players began wearing armbands with this image to show that sport unites people regardless of their characteristics.
One Love has a multi-component logo with a profound meaning. At the center is a heart symbolizing love for all people, regardless of their innate traits. It has a symmetrical shape and consists of six diagonal stripes, each painted in a different color: red, black, green, pink, yellow, and light blue. Designers did not use a gradient because they wanted to achieve maximum similarity with the flags of the African race and pansexuals. On a colorful background, a large white number one is displayed, associated with the name of the anti-discrimination movement.
The heart has a wide black outline and is complemented by the phrase “ONE LOVE,” split into two parts. The first word starts with a hashtag symbol. The hashtag draws attention to the issue and encourages others to discuss social problems. The letters “ON” and “LO” are split horizontally and slightly shifted, as is typical of screen glitches. At the bottom, the phrase “pêl-droed i bawb” appears in untidy handwriting, promoting the idea of “football for all.”
The One Love logo became famous through athletes wearing armbands bearing its image. It started with soccer players from the Netherlands, and then teams from other countries, mainly European ones, joined the flash mob. In 2022, a scandal erupted over Qatar’s ban on displaying the equality symbol during the 2022 FIFA World Cup. This is not surprising, as the country imposed strict requirements on fans and participants of the championship, forbidding even loud shouting, drinking beer, and wearing shorts that were too short.
Font and Colors
The inscriptions on the One Love logo are set in two distinct fonts. The campaign name is in massive bold sans-serif letters. Some of them were deformed: the upper halves of “O,” “N,” and “L” shift slightly to the left. The advertising slogan is set in a font styled to look like untidy handwriting.
The emblem colors are symbolic because they correspond to the flags of people of color (red/black/green) and pansexuals (pink/yellow/blue). Each of them has its meaning.
- Red: bloodshed by African Americans in the struggle for independence.
- Black is the skin color of people of African descent.
- Green: vegetation in Africa symbolizes hope for a better future.
- Pink: people who identify themselves as women.
- Yellow: non-binary gender.
- Blue: people who identify as male.



