Rio 2016 Look of the Games

[CB2328]

On 8/15/2016 at 6:21 AM, hektor said:

The blue track and the electric lime Look applications are growing on me.  The blue track is a completely different look for Athletics, which I believe takes a lot of getting used to. We’re comfortable with the standard reddish brown track.  But given time and exposure, the vibrancy of the blue track gives Rio a distinctive look, and the electric lime just adds to it.  Design is always subjective.  I never cared for London’s logo nor its Look, but its Look was executed consistently well.  I disliked London's purple Olympic Stadium application, but I grew to like it.  Although I never grew to like what London did with gymnastics.  Athens was the best, in my opinion.  But there’s more to an Olympic look than just banners.  I miss the cauldron being in the Athletics stadium.  And I always enjoyed seeing the logo painted on the grass field, plus the potted plants along the finish line and around the medal podium.  I actually like Rio's leaf design on its medals podium, and think the leaf design would have been a stronger Look for surrounding the field of play than its current look, but then the leaf design would be too similar to Atlanta's laurel leaf design.  Just my 2 cents. 

[CB2328]

The blue track and the electric lime Look applications are growing on me.  The blue track is a completely different look for Athletics, which I believe takes a lot of getting used to. We’re comfortable with the standard reddish brown track.  But given time and exposure, the vibrancy of the blue track gives Rio a distinctive look, and the electric lime just adds to it.  Design is always subjective.  I never cared for London’s logo nor its Look, but its Look was executed consistently well.  I disliked London's purple Olympic Stadium application, but I grew to like it.  Although I never grew to like what London did with gymnastics.  Athens was the best, in my opinion.  But there’s more to an Olympic look than just banners.  I miss the cauldron being in the Athletics stadium.  And I always enjoyed seeing the logo painted on the grass field, plus the potted plants along the finish line and around the medal podium.  I actually like Rio's leaf design on its medals podium, and think the leaf design would have been a stronger Look for surrounding the field of play than its current look, but then the leaf design would be too similar to Atlanta's laurel leaf design.  Just my 2 cents. 

[Dylanlip]

A blue track would be less of an issue if everything else wasn't also blue. Take Olympiastadion in Berlin for example:

The seats, wall coverings, and floor beneath the track are not also all blue like Engenhao, because concepts like colour theory and contrast exist when it comes to design. When near everything is the same shade of blue, you go beyond matching into just a lack of understanding. Red is what we're used to because of the evolution of the track material itself, and because it's a complementary color to green, the color of grass. The look then exists to provide further color in spaces with none, while still adhering to colour theory of course.

For the look itself, there are too many inconsistencies. I did not have to grow to like Londons look. The Purple/White/Gold was beautiful from the start, and was used consistently, with one set in use. With Rio, there seems to be 3 different looks, with everything mismatched. There's a mostly orange set, a mostly green set, and a mostly blue set, with some banners exclusively using the base color of each. It's a mess to the eyes.

I just wonder now, if they couldn't be bothered finishing the Olympic Look, what then of the Paralympic Look? I think we'll be seeing quite a few Rings during the Paras.

[CB2328]

London had different sets as well, similar to Rio.  Swimming was blue and gold.  Some venues were orange and blue.  And of course others were purple and gold.  Each were used consistently within the respective venue.  But you are right: Rio's light blue area surrounding the dark blue track is too much. Olympiastadion in Berlin could easily host the Seattle Seahawks.   

[DarJoLe]

London changed the colour combination for certain sports, aquatic sports were blue and yellow for example, more action-orientated orange and blue, blue and orange, etc. Heritage venues were a combination of purple and another colour. But London kept the overall graphic element the same throughout, so you had the burst graphic around the Olympic rings and radiating lines consistent across all the venues surrounding the field of play, it was just the colours that changed.

Rio's look comes from the overall graphic which they have cropped into, the issue being the crop is different for the field of play surrounds for the blue venues to the green venues to orange venues, and I believe this is what is causing a bit of inconsistency in the venues. I'm not sure it's necessarily the wrong approach, after all there is no real correct approach to an Olympic look, but it might have been better to either remove all non-green/orange/blue elements from the tier dressing, or use a section of all the colours. The hurdles, for example in athletics, had bits of the red and purple section of the Rio overall graphic, which looked a bit jarring with the majority blue and green venue.

There have been some excellent moments with the look though which have bettered on London's; they managed to change the shape of the kayak boat numbers to the pebble shape which in London the sport federation were reluctant to, as well as the horse jump flags which was an absolute battle in London because of the sharp shard shape. It's just a shame the wayfinding, no doubt because of cost, has been a very standardised rectangular shape and not something like the pebble shape boards we saw when the look renders were unveiled. 

Tokyo will be interesting to see what kind of 'shape' their look takes on, in some ways after the bombastic festival and hi-colour look of London and Rio I wonder if they will go the other way and look more towards a sharp dark blue look with hints of red. We shall see.

 

[paul]

24 minutes ago, DarJoLe said:

 

 

 

DAMN I miss banners!!!!

On 7/30/2012 at 11:54 PM, DannyelBrazil said:

From this:

To this:

WHAT A IMPROVEMENT!!!

I do love the Rio font but I absolutely loved London's too!!

 

[baron-pierreIV]

Rio's color scheme is all over the place.  There is no unity or message in such a messy look.  

[Sir Rols]

Twice now at the athletics (the 400m final and now the high jump final) I've seen them use a samba band to introduce the competitors. THAT'S a nice local touch of colour I like. Wouldn't have minded a bit more of it.

[mr.bernham]

12 hours ago, DarJoLe said:

So. Much. Consistency. It's beautiful, I miss it and want it back. 

Rio's had the potential to be colorful, fun, and beautiful, but in execution it failed. 

[CB2328]

It seems in the Olympic Stadium that they removed the national flags hanging from the roof.  They were there over the weekend, and gone last night, as far as I could see from NBC's wide shots of the stadium.  I guess they needed them at another venue?  

[Bezzi]

I was in the stadium at night and when the wind was stronger the movement of the flags near the floodlights was creating disturbing shadows in the track.

[hektor]

Back to an old tradition: the final obstacle of the jumping event in Equestrian has a Japanese look and bears the Tokyo 2020 emblem.

I'd be curious to know when it was done the last time, because there was no Rio obstacle in London as far as I fan remember.

[hektor]

Back to an old tradition: the final obstacle of the jumping event in Equestrian has a Japanese look and bears the Tokyo 2020 emblem.

I'd be curious to know when it was done the last time, because there was no Rio obstacle in London as far as I can remember.

Edited August 19, 2016 by hektor

[gotosy]

^^

Quote

The FEI ‏@FEI_Global

Loving the final fence - jumping into @Tokyo2020 next! #TwoHearts #EquestrianJumping

 

 

[downtownBLUE]

36 minutes ago, hektor said:

Back to an old tradition: the final obstacle of the jumping event in Equestrian has a Japanese look and bears the Tokyo 2020 emblem.

I'd be curious to know when it was done the last time, because there was no Rio obstacle in London as far as I fan remember.

It might be an informal "tradition". I quickly skimmed through some YouTube videos of the equestrian jumps and Atlanta had a particularly cartoony Australian-themed jump (and a banal Barcelona one). Athens had one that was somewhat Chinese-pattern designed. I couldn't find one for Beijing (Hong Kong) and London though. 

[hektor]

I can say it was also the case in LA and Seoul.

[JMarkSnow2012]

4 hours ago, downtownBLUE said:

It might be an informal "tradition". I quickly skimmed through some YouTube videos of the equestrian jumps and Atlanta had a particularly cartoony Australian-themed jump (and a banal Barcelona one). Athens had one that was somewhat Chinese-pattern designed. I couldn't find one for Beijing (Hong Kong) and London though. 

This seems to be a rermarkably un-British 2012 interpretation of a telephone kiosk and footbridge:

[olympian]

from what i was able to watch, it looks like the look of the games was very minimal and didn't display very prominently. unlike say vancouver, london and sochi. they were very visible and prominent. 

[baron-pierreIV]

On 8/19/2016 at 10:16 AM, gotosy said:

^^

 

 

I like that.  Nice touch.  

[FAAN]

Olympic Stadium tonight:

[mattygs]

I think one thing most of us can agree on is that the Rio 2016 word mark has been one of of the most successful parts of the look of the Games, and in most cases the application has worked well.

Makes you wonder if the Pyeongchang and Tokyo people will be kicking themselves for having some bland typeface for their logos, especially Pyeongchang. Will be interesting to see how they apply it to their look. 

[Scotguy]

4 hours ago, mattygs said:

I think one thing most of us can agree on is that the Rio 2016 word mark has been one of of the most successful parts of the look of the Games, and in most cases the application has worked well.

Makes you wonder if the Pyeongchang and Tokyo people will be kicking themselves for having some bland typeface for their logos, especially Pyeongchang. Will be interesting to see how they apply it to their look. 

Yeah, it seems that the typeface of just rio 2016 is everywhere and the logo not so much...

[TheOtherRob]

6 hours ago, mattygs said:

I think one thing most of us can agree on is that the Rio 2016 word mark has been one of of the most successful parts of the look of the Games, and in most cases the application has worked well.

Makes you wonder if the Pyeongchang and Tokyo people will be kicking themselves for having some bland typeface for their logos, especially Pyeongchang. Will be interesting to see how they apply it to their look. 

Depends what they do with the Look. Athens is still maybe my favourite overall Look and their typeface wasn't even using a custom font. They used Gill Sans, which is on most people's PCs (it's also the BBC's choice of font for its idents). That said, nothing the Pyeongchang or Tokyo teams has released so far gives me a lot of hope that they'll match Athens in this department.

[brasilolimpico]

I'm afraid of choices Tokyo and Pyeongchang will do.

It is the worst logos I've ever seen.

[DarJoLe]