(DESIGN FOCUS)
(OLYMPIC LOGO DESIGN)
(DESIGN CHALLENGE)
(CREATE A UNIQUE LOGO DESIGN)
(THAT REPRESENTS BOTH THE HOST CITY AND THE OLYMPIC BRAND)
(KNOWN FOR)
(BOLD DESIGN CHOICES THAT OFTEN SET THE TONE)
(FOR THE ENTIRE DESIGN PROGRAMME)
(DESIGN FOCUS)
You want your hosting of the world to feel worthy.
There are so many deliverables within the Games,
there are so many, that if you start thinking of that upfront,
you will be paralysed.
All we could think of was,
let's get everybody to agree on a agree on a mark.
Because that identity has to work on everything.
It has to be stitched, televised,
it has to be functional in every possible capacity.
The identity becomes the linchpin
for thousands of individual design projects.
It connects everything from the mascots
to the sports pictograms,
to the theme of the Games.
And ultimately reflects what the story is.
This emblem should be global look.
Not only a small, Japanese community kind of image,
because it's a history.
Olympic Games is a history,
for every country.
You want to promote your country,
but you also have to keep in mind
that this is a gathering of the world.
Too much ra-ra for your country needs to be played back,
just a little bit in it. But it still, at the same time,
needs to expose your culture.
And it still needs to talk to your own legacy
and your own heritage.
If you look at the Athens logo that was ultimately selected,
it was that crown of laurel leaves on the blue background.
It very much relates back to Greek culture.
It picked up on all those connotations and touch points
and really kind of helped people look at it and go
"Oh, OK. Well, it's not Switzerland."
Rio is a wonderful example.
People in a circle, holding their hands,
And at the same time
showing the mountain from Rio,
that is a symbol of the city,
and bring all this together in the colours of the country.
This is the essence of what a logo could be.
As far as Sochi was concerned
it's quite an interesting geography, where it is
the mountains literally come down to the lake.
And, actually, when you look at the final logo,
it is actually a reflection.
.ru was indicative of the that time we are in,
in terms of the Games itself were going to be
more digitally recorded than any other Games previously.
We needed to make sure not only that we were celebrating
the city itself in the mark,
but then the wider vocabulary,
which celebrated the patterns and the cultures of Russia.
This is where it became national.
For a lot of people, when we think of Mexico,
of course we think of great athletes
that were the stars of this edition,
but at the same time, we have in mind the emblem
and all that was created by Lance Wyman.
Ramirez Vasquez said,
"We don't want to do anything that looks like a Mexican
"sleeping under a cactus with his sombrero pulled down."
He said, "That's not Mexico now,
"and we want to develop a contemporary programme."
Now, growing up here in New York,
I didn't know much about... I know they had pinatas,
but I didn't know much about the culture at all.
So, the first week we spent
over at the museum of anthropology.
And when I started getting in touch
with the history of Mexico City,
I mean, it was amazing.
I was like a kid in a toy box,
It was just incredible.
Lance worked with other great Mexican designers,
and gave himself over to this entire culture,
and allowed it to sort of just flow through him.
And it came out beautifully.
There had been a tradition, in recent Games,
of doing a competition.
That's the route we took, where we basically
asked designers across the country and around the world
to participate and provided a brief about
what we wanted the Games to be all about.
This idea of welcoming the world,
and the warmth of Canadians,
was perfectly distilled into this emblem that we selected,
which was of an inuksuk.
Inuksuk being rock structures
that the Inuit people of the north used
as a means of communicating with others.
The Olympic committee in Barcelona,
they made the briefing.
The symbol or the logo has to represent the city
that's Mediterranean,
colourful, that is dynamic,
that has always believed in sport.
And I said, "OK."
I said, "Well, this is something.
"I don't know. It's a jump."
And I said, "OK, it's a jump.
"It's the jump that they want for Barcelona."
Barcelona wasn't known.
At that time, it had very little international influence.
So this is the launching of Barcelona as a city.
I love Salt Lake because the patchwork of the symbol
looked like an American Indian symbol.
You see a snow-capped mountain,
crossed skis,
you see a sunset,
you see a Native American symbol,
and you see in reverse, a snowflake.
And then Nagano.
It looks like a bursting snow flower
against a mountain top that was snow-capped.
And each one of the petals is representation
of an Olympic event.
A downhill skier, the luge, a ski jump.
But the other thing that was really kind of wonderful
was that, in many respects, it looks like a burst.
And Nagano is the home of fireworks.
At the closing ceremony, they were able to produce fireworks
that would burst out in that Nagano symbol.
With Atlanta, it was a 100th year centennial.
The symbol's a torch on one inspection.
When you look closer, you see the 100,
and part of the flame are stars,
which represent the athletes.
And the top part of the flame is a perfect gold star,
which reaches perfection.
The whole concept of what the Olympics stands for
is coming together and celebrating perfection
and achievement.
And being a part of that was extremely exciting.
The gold star,
the Olympic medal for the designer,
is seeing it happen,
getting it produced, being able to be a part of it.