We’ve been on an Olympic’s design kick over here with some old logos, proposed logos and illustration. How about a design for fake Olympic games!
This project is a fictional design project for the 2020 Olympic Games in the city of Fortaleza, Brazil. The design was done by Guilherme Dultra Villar. I’m loving the look and feel of these – perhaps they should just go ahead and make the 2020 Olympics there. The design would be done!
Yesterday I highlighted some of the Olympic logo designs throughout the past years. We’ve determined that they’re not all exactly stunning examples of good design.
I ran across a redesign that some designers from Brooklyn United did that I absolutely loved! Not only did they redesign the logo for the London 2012 Olympics but they went ahead and brainstormed for Socchi in 2014 and Rio in 2016. Clearly the Olympic logo committee should have looked for a few more options before settling on one. There are some pretty cool options in there for Rio in 2016 as well.
This second is the logo design for the 2016 Olympic games in Rio. Really interesting to see their entire design process and the meaning behind the design.
“After consolidation of our findings, we selected a simple yet powerful idea as our inspiration: what distinguishes our city and makes the Olympic Games a truly grand event are the people, their nature, their feelings and dreams.
That’s why we created a truly human brand.
It’s a brand that embodies unity, transformation, passion and energy. It’s a large collective network in motion, an invitation and inspiration to Rio and the world.”
Are there any Olympic designs (real or fictional) out there that you’ve loved? Please share!
With all of the Olympic craze going around lately, I thought I’d highlight some of the design that goes into the games. Let’s just start out by agreeing that the logo for the 2012 London Olympics is not exactly gorgeous. In fact, it’s far from something that really represents London or athletics or the Olympics.
But then again, look out these designs below from the 1968 Olympics or the even the 1924 Olympics. Definitely aren’t going to be winning any design awards. To see the logo evolution over the years, check out [88 Olympic Logos]. Pretty crazy to see how bad some of the design really is – there aren’t a ton of logos on there that I would particularly like to enlarge and display somewhere. Typography never seems to be very strong in any of the logos and the colors or shapes that are decided on to express the home country sometimes seem haphazard.
The ones that stand out the most to me out of that line up are 1976 Montreal, 2002 Salt Lake City and Vancouver 2010.
There are, however, lots of designers who have chosen to tackle their own design for the Olympic Games. Check back tomorrow for some highlights of those logos!
In other Olympic related design, have you seen GoSquared’s live infographic of some of the numbers important to the Olympic games? Really interesting way to display the information and utilize scrolling. Not to mention they included how much was spent on the Olympic logo design – 400,000 pounds! Yikes!
This is a video in which Adam Ladd asked his 5 year old daughter to name the type of company or name of the company based on the logos that he showed her. I’m sure many of you have seen it floating around the internet lately. Interesting example of what stands out to little kids.
Companies can spend millions upon millions of dollars developing a brand image for themselves and when it comes down to it, it’s all about customer recognition. It could be the most innovative logo ever but if people can’t remember what the company is or what they sell, it’s essentially useless.
In this second video, Adam showed his daughter a series of logos that she had never seen before. She was then asked to draw them from memory after looking at them for 5 seconds. Again, it’s interesting to see what stands out. Logos do not and should not be overly complex. Their purpose is to give an image or identity to a company that people will recognize even if they only see it briefly.
I’ve recently downloaded an App on my iPhone that is a “guess this logo” game (okay, I’m a huge nerd). The majority of them are logos that I can name right off the bat but a few trip me up even if it’s something that I vaguely recognize.
Exactly one month from today, I’ll be getting ready for Convocation followed by Graduation a day later. How weird to think about! So many thoughts about jobs, the real world, and moving floating through my head and I’m positive I’m not the only one. It’s exciting to hear about all of the different places in the country or even the world that people are ended up after college. It feels similar to when everyone announced back in high school what college they were accepted to. Lots of decisions to make but it’s also a really exciting time of uncertainty (at least that’s what I keep trying to tell myself).
The latest decisions I’ve had to make was about how to present myself to companies in the form of business cards and a resume. It’s a pretty big deal to hand a company something that you’ve crafted to tell them a story. You want the piece to be short and concise but you want it to live up to all of the late nights you’ve put in for the past 4 years. Somehow cramming all of the work I’ve done into “Graphic Design + Social Media” doesn’t seem to do it a whole lot of justice.
Business cards (and your resume/website/etc) are meant to give remind people who you are, show them what you do and get them to ultimately contact you! Graphic Design is a world where you really want to get all of your things together – who is going to hire someone who can’t seem to even brand themselves or create anything other than a resume on Word (in Comic Sans). Taking an extra hour or two to really think things over can pay off in the long run.
Another thing to keep in mind is how your work is shown online. It’s pretty clear that almost every aspect of life right now is somewhere on the Internet. This means you should be too. As someone who deals mostly with digital/web work, I make sure that my presence on Google is well… there. It’s shocking how many design majors this year don’t have a personal website or blog or even a simple Behance portfolio to show employers. You’re passing up so many opportunities for people to see your work! There isn’t a quicker or easier way to get your work out to lots of people than having it online.
[This information is just as much for myself as it is for anyone else graduating this year.]
If you’re graduating this year – How about sharing a link to your online portfolio? Would love to see!
Or perhaps you already have a job – Any tips for soon-to-be Grads?
You can spend all of the time you want creating a logo – when it comes down to it the logo for the olympics just looks like “baby toys”.
I opened my email today to find this beauty.
Let’s try switching the color of the text halfway through a question, using every gradient possible and perhaps even throwing a live trace in there? Okay? Sounds like a good plan to me.
What made it even funnier was the quote at the top,”Do you feel safe on campus?”
Well, I did… until I saw this poster.
Gradients, much similar to word art, should be used in moderation and with caution. Extreme caution. It’s probably not the best practice to use four gradients in one poster design all starting from different directions.t
And the circular gradient behind that live traced or posterized image? Good job guys, you really nailed it.
The redeeming quality of this piece appears to be the fact that they stuck with the same typeface throughout.
On the contrary, here is an example of an appropriate time and place to use a gradient:
Nice and subtle on that blue there. It works. It gives off the feeling that there is some kind of sunrise, brighter day or hope going on there.
Like most things with design, there is both a good and a bad way to use everything. Stretching text? Bad practice. Using a font that was designed to look stretched? Quite alright.
Today’s lesson: moderation.
