SeriousPotato

Love it! Outside of the commodification / merchandising aspect (which I agree with a few posters here), the execution is sincerely sweet and charming. They feel like real characters.

If anything, this only makes me feel worse. This has no soul or humanity.

More than the renderings, the appointment of Thomas Jolly gives me a big confidence boost that this could be legitimately great and not just a concert. I'm not super familiar with his work but looking at examples from his productions, they are visually striking and seem to have the "it" factor of a great ceremony. The Paralympic stage setting seems better, but still the open format strikes me as an exceptionally difficult platform to express a point of view with artistic storytelling. Can Jolly and team save this from being a shallow pop production? I hope so.

This format for both Olympic and Paralympic seems so ill-suited to theatrical storytelling. I suspect it's going we're either going to see something truly daring and innovative, or it's going to just be strictly protocol and music performances with performers / special effects. I hope not the latter!

Indeed, I would not call this art-deco-influenced. Key traits of art deco are emphasis on verticality, restraint with color, luxury (often conveyed with gold against black/dark color), dramatic lines that convey lifting motion and heroic flourish. It's philosophy is totally different. The emphasis on this design system is color boldness, flatness, uniformity, and rigid geometry. What we're seeing here owes far more to German Bauhaus and Modernism. So if anything it's the opposite of Art Deco. There's no agreed-on title for today's current wave of it (A lot of people I know just call it Abstract Geometric) but the style has been very common from 2010s-2022 for conferences and event branding. https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=abstract geometric branding&rs=typed

Ugh I sound like such a grump. I hate re-reading my posts and being unable to edit. It's not bad. It's fine.

To add, per my experience in the design world, I suspect the above is more a client-problem and less a designer-problem. I have little doubt that behind-the-scenes there were a lot of innovative, but rejected concepts. That's how it often goes.

Ehh, if the look holds............. Good news: It's perfectly functional and will serve its purpose. Bad news: It's merely functional and serves its purpose. I (perhaps wrongly) thought of all places that could really take risks and do something wildly different and get away with it, it'd be Paris. To think of the huge range of tantalizing directions they could have gone, to end up ordinary and safe is mildly disappointing. And the examples go on and on..... just browse "Conference Branding Pattern" on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=Conference branding pattern&rs=typed It even reminds me of the scrapped Tokyo 2020 concept (which wasn't fully developed into a Look yet). I wonder what Kenjiro Sano's reaction to this would be. I do love the pictograms though, that's the most interesting aspect.

Sad, I would love to hear this one!

Especially considering the importance of the number 8 in China. It always gives me chills hearing that!

There ought to be more innovation with the Olympic slogans. They are so corporate and watered down, why bother? I loved LA28's "Follow the Sun" and wish they would stick with it, it's the only slogan in recent memory that really stuck with me.

Rio's facilities are largely being used today. An easy test to verify this is to look up the various facilities like Maracanã, the Olympic Stadium, Deodoro Park, or the Olympic Park on Instagram and just look at the trove of photos visitors take. It's not a perfect legacy, but it's a different picture than carefully-framed photos from 2016-17 would have you believe. Six years on, Rio begins transforming venue into schools

Chris_Mex referenced Rio's Aquatics Centre with a photograph. I was responding to that.

This Aquatics Centre was never meant to be a permanent facility. Its swimming pools did get repurposed which you can't see in the photo. The structure's lack of dismantling has, I think, more to do with political retribution of the post-Games mayor than anything. I say that because with the new (previous) administration we're finally seeing some of the temporary facilities being dismantled.

A strong, focused idea behind the concept (the first Indigenous-led bid in Olympic history) that distinguishes it from not only Vancouver's previous games, but potentially any previous Olympics. Wide re-use of facilities and a focus on sustainability. The only major new construction is the Olympic Village which could provide much-needed affordable housing to the Vancouver area. No 2028-2030 issue. Positive memories of 2010. The skepticism here seems unwarranted to me. This project completely fits the civic values one finds in Vancouver/PNW and I think public support will grow with these new details.