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PyeongChang 2018 Emblem Unveiling


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Well, "casual viewer" should really mean foreign or international viewer. Yeah, I get the whole Korean character thing too, & yeah, for a split moment the asterick could be looked at as a snow symbol, but to the average viewer at home, especially the Western viewers, this isn't going to transcend right away, if at all. It's really boring. I said earlier in this thread that I really liked Nagano's logo. Very Japanese & gave a nice impression at first glance. This just gives an impression of "WTF"!

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zJJ2GkF.jpg

I had to do this. I'm not even sorry.

....I guess asking for a decent olympic logo it's too much to ask these days =_=.

hahaha!

The logo is crap... Very disappointing... It looks like it took 5 minutes to put together on Microsoft paint.

Expected more.

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The design features the hangul characters (the korean alphabet) first sound 'ㅍ' and 'ㅊ' (Korean-평창, English-PyeongChang) to represent the host city's name, and uses Korea's traditional colors, or Obangsek(5 direction colors = east : blue / west : white / south : red / north : black / center : yellow ) which are also the official Olympic colors.

The 'ㅍ' character is also used to symbolize a gathering square, while the 'ㅊ' on a white backdrop epitomizes winter sports.

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Interesting video SwissO

The way they used the stick art animation in the video is interesting - and in some ways actually works quite well.

The emblem works better against a light blue background somehow. Also I think the all white version on the blue slalom posts and gold version in the bob track is an improvement.

You can start to see what the look might be like in that video - the torch stick drawings fits well.

I'm still not a fan of the actual logo at the moment though!

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The PyeongChang 2018 Organising Committee (POCOG) today launched its official Olympic emblem in front of over 1,000 guests at a gala ceremony held simultaneously in PyeongChang and in Seoul, the capital of the Republic of Korea. The new emblem draws on Hangul – the Korean alphabet – and Korea’s traditional humanism – Cheon-ji-in.

The ceremony was attended by Gunilla Lindberg, Chair of the International Olympic Committee (IOC)’s Coordination Commission for PyeongChang 2018; Jin-sun Kim, the President of POCOG; Jinryong Yoo, the Republic of Korea’s Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism; Moon-soon Choi, Governor of Gangwon Province; Jung-haeng Kim, President of the Korean Olympic Committee; and Sang-hwa Lee, Olympic gold medallist in speed skating. A congratulatory message was also delivered on behalf of Geun-hye Park, the President of the Republic of Korea.

Where the earth meets the sky

The emblem’s design has its roots in Hangul, with the shapes that form the logo stemming from the first consonants of each syllable in the word “PyeongChang” when it is written in Hangul. The first character in the emblem also represents a gathering place where the three elements of Cheon-ji-in – heaven, earth, and human – are in harmony. The second character symbolises snow and ice, as well as the athletes’ stellar performances. PyeongChang 2018’s new emblem symbolises a grand gathering of people from all around the world in celebration of Olympic winter sports, which is taking place in the harmonious land of PyeongChang – “A square where the earth meets the sky, and where athletes excel in snow or on ice - that’s where everyone will celebrate the world’s biggest winter festival in 2018.”

Discovering Culture and Traditions

Commenting on the emblem, IOC President Jacques Rogge said, “I would like to congratulate the PyeongChang 2018 Organising Committee on the launch of its innovative new emblem. As an athlete, part of the excitement of participating in the Games is discovering the culture and traditions of the host country, and for the PyeongChang Games, that discovery begins today with this new identity. Combining elements of the Korean alphabet and oriental philosophy, this new brand will allow people to immediately connect with Korea and the 2018 Games vision of New Horizons. I wish PyeongChang 2018 a great deal of success in sharing this new emblem with the world.”

Celebrate in Harmony

Commission Chair Lindberg said after the ceremony, “In just under five years’ time, PyeongChang 2018 will welcome athletes and spectators from around the world to celebrate in harmony at the XXIII Olympic Winter Games. This new emblem truly reflects those values and PyeongChang and Korea’s commitment to staging truly outstanding Games that will create new horizons for winter sport and the Olympic Movement in Korea and across Asia. I would therefore like to congratulate the PyeongChang 2018 Organising Committee for its work and commitment to turning its brand vision into a reality.”

Traditional Korean Colours

The emblem uses five traditional Korean colours – black, blue/green, yellow, red, and white – which is the same colour scheme as that found in the Olympic flag. Traditionally, blue and green were represented by a single word in Hangul but this has now changed, with separate words now existing for each. The five cardinal colours are found in many aspects of daily life and tradition in Korea, including in clothing, celebrations, martial arts, architecture, art and food.

Gain Momentum

President Kim of POCOG commented, “Our Games preparations will certainly gain momentum in light of today’s launch of the emblem. I wish that all of us at POCOG and residents of Gangwon Province as well as Koreans involved in sports, culture and business take the ownership of delivering one of the most successful Games in Olympic history, with the same passion and spirit that we demonstrated throughout our bid efforts.”

Across All Communications

The development process of the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic emblem was masterminded by Jong-joo Ha, who is known for his branding expertise that spans a wide range of projects, such as the corporate identity designs of major global corporations. This new emblem will now be used by PyeongChang 2018 across all its communications until the end of the Games.

http://www.olympic.org/news/pyeongchang-2018-launches-official-emblem/196086

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32171999459a5782f22b6b8445d08bcd.png

I was the creator of the Jaca 2014 applicant olimpyc logo almost 10 years ago and many people blamed that awful logo, but I must confess that IMO PyeongChang's logo is even worse! Come on! is this "logo" gonna be the official emblem of the WOG?? No passion at all...

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Hope you studied Korean at school...

http://youtu.be/BZ56O9ikGWc

This is how my thought process went:

When I first saw the logo, I first noticed what we all see as the "pi" symbol, which in Korean is the symbol for the "P" letter in the Korean alphabet. I didn't like it, I thought it was too anorexic, I thought the colours sucked, and the font was too plain. I thought they should've beefed it up. But at least I understood what they were trying to do with the "P" letter (it even looked like a temple at first glance). The "asterisk" didn't pop out as the "CH" letter at first, but I saw it after a second (this is explained in 1:35 of the video above). I thought the problem lay with what most of you are saying, that it wouldn't resonate with the international audience, because non-Koreans wouldn't know the Korean alphabet. Personally, I thought this would've been great as a bid logo, when Annecy used their "A", and when Munich used their "M" as part of their logos. But I see where Pyeongchang was coming from, they would risk losing out on votes because no one would understand their alphabet in comparison to the Roman alphabet used for Annecy and Munich. Still, I thought that as great that it would've been as a bid logo, it was horrible for the official logo.

Then I saw this video posted by SwissO. And I realized that POCOG wanted to integrate this with their "look" of the Games. I could see the image in the top-left corner at 3:05 of the video being marketed and sold- to Koreans. Once "Pyeongchang" is spelled out in Korean using the logo in addition to the remaining letters of the alphabet plus the 2018, the image suddenly becomes more fuller, and is no longer anorexic, and the font no longer looks plain- it just looks Korean. Once I realized how they were going to integrate this logo with their "look," I now love the logo.

The problem is I don't see non-Koreans ever liking this logo because it will always look simplistic. The reason why Koreans will be more likely to like it is because the logo itself looks like it's comprised of letters of the Korean alphabet, which means the "look" of the Games can feature any letter of the Korean alphabet and still exist alongside this logo.

My conclusion is that Pyeongchang 2018 is going to cater to Koreans first at the expense of the rest of the world, as opposed to Seoul 1988, which catered to the outside world first. The logo itself gives off a "we-don't-care-what-you-think, we'll-do-what-we-want" vibe, kind of like London 2012. Perhaps it's also a sign of things to come- if Koreans don't feel the need to have the approval of the outside world for their logo and their "look", then maybe they're finally coming to grips that they don't need to have the approval of the outside world for other things in life too.

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I would love to know the logic behind such a horrible basic font. At the end of the day you can't plaster the logo every few meters on the fop signage, but you can use a wordmark and mix it up to make it work. Even some of the more basic fonts of recent logos have worked well in this regard. The Athens one even.

Surely they could have picked something abit more memorable, even Barcelona's font was more distinctive than this.

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I that video, you've got to admit that those waves, clouds and curls made out of coloured sticks will look very smart on the actual venues, skirting the stadiums, etc... One of the most unique Olympic liveries, ever. Olympic colours look so great in tandem, and PC has finally stood up and utilised them, although this style would have worked well in Korean colours, eg/ without any green.

There are also no guesses for how the pictograms will look.

Still curious for the Paralympic version? I'm guessing a play in shapes and colours?

Edited by runningrings
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I that video, you've got to admit that those waves, clouds and curls made out of coloured sticks will look very smart on the actual venues, skirting the stadiums, etc... One of the most unique Olympic liveries, ever. Olympic colours look so great in tandem, and PC has finally stood up and utilised them, although this style would have worked well in Korean colours, eg/ without any green.

There are also no guesses for how the pictograms will look.

Still curious for the Paralympic version? I'm guessing a play in shapes and colours?

Oh, I'm sure it will feature the letters of the Korean alphabet. I think everything will centre around the letters of the Korean alphabet. Surprising coming from Korea. I never thought they had it in them to be innovative- they've always been one to follow the trend rather than break away from it.

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My conclusion is that Pyeongchang 2018 is going to cater to Koreans first at the expense of the rest of the world, as opposed to Seoul 1988, which catered to the outside world first. The logo itself gives off a "we-don't-care-what-you-think, we'll-do-what-we-want" vibe, kind of like London 2012. Perhaps it's also a sign of things to come- if Koreans don't feel the need to have the approval of the outside world for their logo and their "look", then maybe they're finally coming to grips that they don't need to have the approval of the outside world for other things in life too.

And this is why I'm happy with what we have today. You mention Annecy and Munich using their alphabetical roman letter in their logo, so why can't PC use their own language.

If anything, this brave, London style step works even better for the home crowd than the 2012 example because it speaks to them directly.

This shows a great change in national character from 1988 to 2018 - the Seoul Olympics were South Korea's post war debutant ball, showing the world it was back, and appealing to them through western ideas of orientalism. The 2018 example steers away from that appeal, and that need for external validation, and the subtext of this is that it shows a more self confident, relaxed South Korea.

In this regard, I'd say that the logo and potential theme of 2018 will be one of the best.

Edited by runningrings
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I would love to know the logic behind such a horrible basic font. At the end of the day you can't plaster the logo every few meters on the fop signage, but you can use a wordmark and mix it up to make it work. Even some of the more basic fonts of recent logos have worked well in this regard. The Athens one even.

Surely they could have picked something abit more memorable, even Barcelona's font was more distinctive than this.

That was my initial reaction too- that even if you want to use the letters of the Korean alphabet, you can still jazz up the font of the "P" as well as the English letters at the bottom. I thought maybe some curves would've been nice. But if you look at the Korean alphabet, 12 of the 14 consonants are made up of straight lines, meaning no curves. Only 2 consonants have curves, and they both include a round circle (the circle you see so often in Korean writing). Admittedly, for vowels, the circle features a lot more. So to feature the Korean alphabet, the font of the logo needs to be linear, not curvacious or round or swooshy. So while it might work for Rio or Barcelona, it won't work for Pyeongchang.

The one thing I would have wanted to change is the English writing of "Pyeongchang" at the bottom. I would have wanted to make that linear too, rather than in regular font. But I presume POCOG thought that might look too similar to London 2012's look, where everything was linear as well. I think if London 2012 hadn't been so linear, Pyeongchang 2018 could have run with it.

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I just had a thought - a direction this logo could have gone that would have perhaps referenced the western audiences, and perhaps taking ideas from both Sochi and London, would involve replacing the black "PYEONGCHANG 2018" with simply "PC18" in those sharp, liner lines, in with each 'stick' a different colour, like the Korean above. So in this way, the Roman writing would appear quite London 2012, but less obvious as its just "PC18", and the Sochi aspect is the mirroring of the logo, with a second interpretation below.

Edited by runningrings
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http://www.logodesignsource.com/types.html

2010: dull combination mark (dull icon with dull wordmark)

2012: dynamic icon

2014: dynamic wordmark

2016: dynamic combination mark

2018: dull combination mark (dull logo with dull wordmark)

So I'd put this in the same category as Vancouver's personally.

But Vancouver's look was so artistic and beautiful it barely mattered that their logo was uninteresting. PC can do the same - develop a great "look" and the logo will just be sprinkled around where it's needed a la Vancouver.

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I just had a thought - a direction this logo could have gone that would have perhaps referenced the western audiences, and perhaps taking ideas from both Sochi and London, would involve replacing the black "PYEONGCHANG 2018" with simply "PC18" in those sharp, liner lines, in with each 'stick' a different colour, like the Korean above.

I tend to agree- the black placename & date are far too dominant. It would actually work better in Korean Hangul of course, where the placename would be compressed to two pictograms.

I also agree with RobH that if a "look" can be developed around the logo (which even London got right) then it might be made to work. But as presented today- yuck.

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