Logolympics.

With Obama over in Copenhagen trying to persuade the Olympic commitee to let Chicago host the 2016 games, I thought I would bring up the most important part of any Olympic games…the logo. Anyone who watched the Beijing Olympics during the summer of 2008 knows that with hundreds of hours of coverage spanning multiple networks, websites and all things media, you see the Olympic logo branding ALOT. These logos are normally fairly conservative (minus the now famous abortion known as the London 2012 Olympic logo) but offer a graphic style of the host nation and some kind of world-peace-everyone-hold-hands theme. This time around though it seems the bidding nations have opted out of the typical olive branch designs and gone more contemporary with thier branding.

Chicago’s logo, which looks oddly Obama-campaign-ian in its design, has orange gradient “buildings” with blue gradient “lake” reflections divided by one of the six-pointed stars on Chicago’s city flag. While I’m no stranger to gradient designs and I do like the type treatment (not sure the typeface, Avenir maybe?) I’m not a fan of this logo overall. The idea of having the Chicago star as the main graphic element seems too city specific and less America specific. The orange and blue reflection is a nicely composed display of complementary colors but I think is better executed in Chicago’s first pick for a logo the “torch” design. That design has the same buildings/lake reflection effect but mimics an Olympic torch. This was apparently dismissed by the Olympic commitee because no marks are allowed to have Olympic symbols/rings/torches/etc. Also, I’m not entirely sure its appropriate to depict Chicago engulfed by fire after the famous 1871 disaster.

The logos for the other 3 bidders (aka losers) Rio, Madrid and Tokyo are decent but even less effective then the Chicago logo. Rio’s logo is some sort of Brazilian style leaf, which doesn’t make much sense to me. Madrid’s is a Spanish style handprint, which I guessing it supposed to represent all the colors/races of the world having the same handprints. Tokyo’s logo I am most disapointed with. For a culture so wilding renown for innovative design, they went uber conservation with a traditional Japanese knot typing that colors of the Olympics together. Snor.

Today is the big decision for the 2016 host city, so start your U-S-A chants now.