A clear comparison of the 'SEA Games 2025' promotional banners reveals the background behind the abandoned original design and the possibly still incomplete new design.
On 5 Dec 2025 GMT+7, netizens widely shared images of the promotional banners designed by TNOP Design for the SEA Games 2025, hosted by Thailand from 9-20 December. The original design featured “The San” mascot version with seven characters: five for the SEA Games and two for the ASEAN Para Games, based on the concept “7 Days 7 Colors” symbolizing Thai wisdom through woven patterns.
Of course, the current promotional banners no longer use that design. The Minister, Attakorn, decided to combine the five SEA Games mascots into one character and the two ASEAN Para Games mascots into one, aiming for easier recognition and to symbolize ASEAN unity.
Additionally, the colors of the Thai national flag were incorporated as the main design element to reflect national pride on the international stage.
Recently, Natthachawin Sutthisan, CTO of Ava Advisor, expressed dismay after seeing this year’s SEA Games design, saying, “Before the current design emerged, we had a stunning, incredibly cool concept created by an excellent team at TNOP Design led by P’Theeranop, who has won numerous awards both in Thailand and internationally.”
However, for reasons unknown, those in authority rejected P’Theeranop’s work and instead commissioned another party. Worse, they allegedly took P’Theeranop’s original design without permission and modified it in a copyright-infringing manner, doing so without any understanding of the design itself.
In the end, the result is what we see now: instead of outstanding work, we got a retro-style welcome banner that even the original 1998 version looked better than; a poster commissioned for 8 million baht that looks like it was generated by AI prompts from someone inexperienced; “The San” mascot, carefully designed by P’Theeranop, was simply recolored with Thai flag colors; and the Rajamangala Stadium banner is cluttered with sponsor logos poorly aligned and many other issues.