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GamesBids Olympic Fan Survey: Looks of the Games  

55 members have voted

  1. 1. Which is your favourite Olympic "Look of the Games"?

    • Mexico CIty 1968
      5
    • Munich 1972
      6
    • Montreal 1976
      1
    • Moscow 1980
      0
    • Los Angeles 1984
      3
    • Seoul 1988
      0
    • Barcelona 1992
      2
    • Lillehammer 1994
      4
    • Atlanta 1996
      4
    • Nagano 1998
      1
    • Sydney 2000
      1
    • Salt Lake City 2002
      1
    • Athens 2004
      8
    • Torino 2006
      4
    • Beijing 2008
      1
    • Vancouver 2010
      3
    • London 2012
      9
    • Sochi 2014
      1
    • PyeongChang 2018
      0
    • Other (specify and show)
      1


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Okay, this is the fan poll that's been requested. And I had a lot of fun putting these collages together (with some help from Mr Bernham... thanks mate, and hope you don't mind I've tweaked them a bit! Also, I've should give credit for some images to TheOlympicDesign.com, a great site if you're interested in researching the looks more. I've only gone as far back as Mexico 68 for the summer games and Lillehammer 94 for the WOGs - I may be wrong, but I sorta attribute these as benchmarks in the development of games' looks, and it also helped get it down to the 20 choices possible in a poll here. If you have any games looks not mentioned, please show.

And again, sorry if these images take a while to load, but some of the looks images are just too pretty not to show them off in a decent size and res.

Anyway, here we go:

Mexico City 1968

s8b2.jpg

Munich 1972

hnxc.jpg

Montreal 1976

6dzr.jpg

Moscow 1980

zv35.jpg

Los Angeles 1984

4zxa.jpg

Seoul 1988

e1wj.jpg

Barcelona 1992

fs8z.jpg

Lillehammer 1994

f4nc.jpg

Atlanta 1996

r4do.jpg

Nagano 1998

niy6.jpg

Sydney 2000

kokt.jpg

Salt Lake City 2002

8yfq.jpg

Athens 2004

ne1nx.jpg

Torino 2006

n5qz.jpg

Beijing 2008

jjqo.jpg

Vancouver 2010

sk0a.jpg

London 2012

kfx2.jpg

Sochi 2014

yl2k.jpg

And finally, it may not be the look yet, but it's worth considering how it's going to be applied, PyeongChang 2018

x1lz.jpg

Edited by Sir Rols
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This is really much harder to decide than I thought. Putting them together, I got a feel for what I think has been the development in look design. To me, Mexico was well ahead of its time in having a consistent branding and look, and a lot of what followed seemed a step back from that until LA'84. After that, another bit of a lull until Lillehammer started the ball rolling on more colourful, adventurous and distinctive looks.

I have a really soft spot for both Mexico and LA. I've also had a lot of regard for Lillehammer, Atlanta and London - each branded their games memorably. I also loved Sochi this year - but it's funny, putting the Sochi collage together I did get a feel for it being too busy (but that may be more about how I did the collage, than the actual look). Gotta say, though, putting these together, I got a real appreciation for Athens' again, so it gets my vote, ever so slightly ahead of Lillehammer and Atlanta.

Edited by Sir Rols
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This is really much harder to decide than I thought. Putting them together, I got a feel for what I think has been the development in look design. To me, Mexico was well ahead of its time in having a consistent branding and look, and a lot of what followed seemed a step back from that until LA'84.

that's why i voted for mexico. quite impressive when you think about it.

as for the winters, i like the very colorful ones, including torino and sochi. blue is a bad color for winter games branding because it's nothing special against white and silver.

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On the whole, the collages are good.

I have to say, I don't think LA's collage is very representative, which is a shame because it was a fabulous look and the first Games to have such a comprehensive and ubiquitous visual identity that really blanketed the city.

Favorite look: LA84. Unforgettable, vibrant color. Dynamic energy. Very LA, but didn't scream "USA." Very 1980's. Had a celebratory, kinetic quality that worked brilliantly in a wide variety of applications. The 3D applications were especially effective.

Honorable mention: Athens.

Truly gorgeous.

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I don't think LA's collage is very representative, which is a shame because it was a fabulous look and the first Games to have such a comprehensive and ubiquitous visual identity that really blanketed the city.

I've added a bit more to it. It was one of the first I did, and I agree, it didn't quite represent the vibrancy of the 84 look.

Poor Korea. If PC turns out any good looks-wise, it'd be an incredible surprise. And Seoul I found tough to do - very hodge-podge with few elements linking it apart from the logo. Hard to find much of interest from there.

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That is an incredible amount of work you did Rols (edited to ad Mr Bernham as well in my praise!!)! I am very impressed!

I opted for Lillehammer. Barcelona, LA and Vancouver would be next. Lillehammer used their very creative look extremely well. Really - only the mascots were wrong.

Edited by thatsnotmypuppy
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Well done, reflected the looks well.

It's really hard for me to separate my 3 favourites.

Athens, Atlanta and London.

In terms of a total city wide 3d styled look, then London wins.

Atlanta had a great mix of celebrating the heritage of the host as well as the heritage of the centennial. It was classy, and worked on many levels.

Athens could have gone down that same olive branchy traditional look, but managed to come up with something very Greek that was modern yet had many nods to the past.

I think for me, Athens wins.

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Well done, reflected the looks well.

It's really hard for me to separate my 3 favourites.

Athens, Atlanta and London.

In terms of a total city wide 3d styled look, then London wins.

Atlanta had a great mix of celebrating the heritage of the host as well as the heritage of the centennial. It was classy, and worked on many levels.

Athens could have gone down that same olive branchy traditional look, but managed to come up with something very Greek that was modern yet had many nods to the past.

I think for me, Athens wins.

I've just come here to post more or less the same thing Matty!

London's look was superb and its core ideas taken on almost wholesale by Sochi this year. The decision to focus on shape and go with venue and context specific colour schemes lead to a united but very colourful look. The integration of the pictrograms was also pretty smart. I wonder if Rio will follow what London and then Sochi did in this respect or simply stick with yellows, greens and blues.

Athens' got my vote though. I don't think it was cleverest or most coherent or most groundbreaking look, but the mass of banners with the blues, yellows and pinks just sang out brilliantly. There's not much I can say about it other than that.

Special mentions to Munich which was ahead of its time in so many respects, and Vancouver which was so artfully done and made up for the logo.

Asian hosts; what's going on? Wishy-washy. And I'm not holding much hope for Pyeonchang's scheme.

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I absolutely go for the city who really imposed the way the Games "look". Mexico City was colorful, joyful and very practical abstracting images and as I said before it reflects how ancient cultures, post-colonised and contemporary melted in those Games. It also resembled how Mexico City used signs in stone steles before the Spaniards. The patterns were taken from the Wixarika people from Jalisco, also inspiring it capital in 2011 for the Pan-Am Games. And using "Op Art" to give shape in a psychedelic way even printed in fashionable clothes like mini-skirts, go-go boots, bell-bottoms trousers, long or high hairdos and so on, giving a very distinct touch of these games that many still remember very well.

And for winter I go for Turin. Like the Mexicans, the Italians used color, warm colors to style these games with Piedmont colors. I also feel attracted to those looks of Barcelona, Athens, LA and Rio. They all reflect their passion and their historical and cultural kinship impacting their colonies in the "New World".

Having a good concept on graphic design, the committees shouldn't have to spend fortunes in massive and extravagant venues that sooner or later will become white elephants.

I really can't wait for the first African or Muslim host city to see new Olympic styles.

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Okay, this is premature (like PyeongChang's - in fact I probably should have done this instead of PyeongChang), but I thought it might be fun to speculate on what we know of Rio's look so far (which apparently will be unveiled this year, sometime after the WC no doubt). The collage below should be seen as nothing more than a teaser and start-up point for speculation - guess I'll have to just start the poll again when the official look comes up ;) .

ekkg.jpg

What is confirmed is the font and the pictograms. I also feel we have the colour pallette, or at least the spectrum they're going to choose from (going by the pictogram chart and other images). I really like those elements so far and chalk this up as a thumbs up for Rio.

On the other hand, despite the hints, I'm pretty sure we haven't seen the look in images such as the one I got at Casa Brazil in London (orange, top left) or that's been posted from Magazelipe in the Rio threads (green, blue, yellow, orange top right).

Speculating, the wave footpath pattern does seem to crop up often (and was certainly cited as a big influence in the font design at its announcement), and the squiggly design from the example I found in London has been used similarly in applications of the typeface in the green leaf of centre or the yellow/ochre footpath again up top. It seems that ovaloid shape with the pictograms crops up a bit too.

Edited by Sir Rols
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I'm really falling love with Rio's...I voted Barcelona, I love the mosaic design. Sydney, Athens, and London all honorary mention. London worked very well for games time and is certainly modern.

Athens was simply beautiful and colorful, very nice

Sydney just summed-up those games perfectly...The Best Olympic Games Ever.

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I was expecting a look very similar to Athens' initially, but with blues, yellows and greens. But I wonder now that London has taken things in a bit of a different direction which Sochi has followed whether we can expect another multi-colour palette with different combinations being applied to different venues. In which case, it'll be fun to see what template they use to hold it all together. DarJoLe has, I think, hinted that Rio might be taking this direction - a Londonesque look but curvy rather than angular.

Whatever the case, everything they've produced so far has been extremely slick with the pictograms being one of the best bits of Olympic design I've seen. I expect them to get it very right.

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By the way, if we can include posters, typography and palette colour I want to bring back how good was Stockholm'12. Even the use of sport pictograms were fully seen during the Games all over the venues. From 1920 to 1956 the Games were visually poor, at lest to me.

file://localhost/Users/Stroj/Desktop/souvenir-publication-for-gymnastics-displays-at-stockholm-olympic-games-1912-by-artur-sjc3b6gren.jpg

file://localhost/Users/Stroj/Desktop/Prog%20-%201912,%20Olympic%20Games.JPG

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I was expecting a look very similar to Athens' initially, but with blues, yellows and greens. But I wonder now that London has taken things in a bit of a different direction which Sochi has followed whether we can expect another multi-colour palette with different combinations being applied to different venues. In which case, it'll be fun to see what template they use to hold it all together. DarJoLe has, I think, hinted that Rio might be taking this direction - a Londonesque look but curvy rather than angular.

Whatever the case, everything they've produced so far has been extremely slick with the pictograms being one of the best bits of Olympic design I've seen. I expect them to get it very right.

I would love for London's brand to be known as the one that changed things up!

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London's look was plain jane in so many ways, it looked scared, overly restrained, and rigid. What started as a free spirited have fun style that embraced risk turned abruptly SAFE SAFE SAFE and SAFER.

It was 2 dimentional and flat. I can't help but feel they got scared after the terrible reaction to the logo launch....and it all went SAFE from there out. No more experimentation.....the creative folks got there dicks cut off.

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London's look was plain jane in so many ways, it looked scared, overly restrained, and rigid. What started as a free spirited have fun style that embraced risk turned abruptly SAFE SAFE SAFE and SAFER.

It was 2 dimentional and flat. I can't help but feel they got scared after the terrible reaction to the logo launch....and it all went SAFE from there out. No more experimentation.....the creative folks got there dicks cut off.

I thought it was all about K.I.S.S. They had very clear design principles based on a combination of colour and shape recognition, which meant that London's Olympic branding stood out in the cluttered urban landscape.

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I thought it was all about K.I.S.S. They had very clear design principles based on a combination of colour and shape recognition, which meant that London's Olympic branding stood out in the cluttered urban landscape.

Any Olympic branding stands out from the "cluttered urban landscape" due to its color and prevalence. It's not as though London was the first to achieve that. And it certainly didn't do it in remarkable fashion.

I will say, however, that the primary purpose of a Look is to create a unified, celebratory atmosphere . London definitely achieved that. I just didn't see artistry or originality. But artistry and originality are bonuses. The lack of them doesn't make the Look a failure, just uninspired.

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