The logo for China Media Group (CMG)'s 2026 Spring Festival Gala conveys the country's auspicious culture to viewers around the world, its designer Gu Yongjiang said in an interview in Beijing on Wednesday.
On the same day, CMG unveiled the official theme and logo for its 2026 Spring Festival Gala, celebrating the start of the Year of the Horse on the Chinese lunar calendar, which begins on February 17, 2026.
The theme of the 2026 Spring Festival Gala is "Galloping steed, Onward unstoppable" inspired by a poetic line from an ancient anthology of Chinese poetry.
The logo inspired the designers to draw images of "four horses galloping side by side" from the four characters in "Galloping steed, Onward unstoppable," each of which contains the radical of "horse" in Chinese, and they combined them with classic elements of traditional Chinese cloud, thunder, and meander patterns. This became the core creative concept for the main logo.
"First of all, the four characters are visually artistic as their 'horse' radicals look like four horses standing side by side. By combining cloud and thunder patterns with meander patterns, we designed an entirely new type of motif, which highlights the images of impregnable Great Wall and galloping cavalry. We would also create a new auspicious phrase and integrate it with the main logo's visual symbols, which in effect means we are creating a new form of auspicious culture."said Gu Yongjiang, designer of the main logo.
The Chinese lunar year for 2026 is the Year of the Horse, one of the most dynamic and spirited in the 12-animal Chinese zodiac cycle, representing strength, perseverance and unstoppable momentum.
The Spring Festival Gala hosted by CMG has been an essential part of the Chinese New Year celebrations since 1983. The gala includes songs, dances, comic sketches, operas and folk arts.
The annual spectacle, known as the most-watched television program in the world, is broadcast on the eve of the Chinese New Year, when families come together to ring in the new lunar year.
This year's Spring Festival eve falls on Feb 16, 2026.
2026 Spring Festival Gala logo conveys China's auspicious culture to viewers: designer
