The 2014 Olympic Logo
Does Sochi’s Olympic logo work?
Dec 03
| by John McWade
The logo of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, was unveiled this week at a press conference in Red Square by IOC president Jacques Rogge and other dignitaries. Said Rogge of the logo, which was developed by Interbrand, “It’s very appealing. It’s very creative, innovative. I think it will appeal especially to the young population.”
We’ll look at it in a few moments, but first I want to look at something else — a competing entry from the Moscow design firm Transformer Studio that blends five visual concepts in a graceful image that works at every scale.
Transformer’s creative brief was brief . . .
“The goal was to scatter the myth about the image of Russia as a cold and unfriendly country. The symbolics should represent Russia and its genuine friendly spirit and hospitality.”
Said Transformer of the images above . . .
“People are dancing in a cheerful circle dance, holding hands, laughing and singing. Khorovod* is a symbol of unity. The logotype consists of palekh*-stylized firebirds’ feathers in a round dance.
“Firebird is a Slavic fairytale character, symbol of fire, light and sun. Young men had to find firebirds’ feathers in order to complete the challenge.
“Since the beginning of the Olympics, champions have been given the highest honor to be awarded by a wreath. Five feathers form the laureate wreath, which symbolizes five continents as in the Olympic sign.”
*Khorovod: traditional Russian circle dance *Palekh: Russian national folk art
From these ideas and images, they designed the entry below . . .
Typeface: Co Headline OT
It’s very functional. It works in one color (and in negative) . . .
It works small . . .
Note on the balloon the relationships of scale. The logo appears twice; the first is small and complete, and the second is so big that there’s room for only part of it. The contrast is fantastic — it’s a bold, arresting, almost overwhelming presentation that will connect worldwide even on small screens.
———-So now back to Tuesday’s unveiling.
There are several visual ideas embodied in this design, plus a functional one — it’s a Web address, which is a first.
The Sochi2014.ru site describes the logo as “a 21st-century brand for a digital generation,” designed to “actively encourage dialog between Russians, nations and winter sports fans, particularly youth.” Its (semi-)mirrored typography is intended to represent Sochi’s location on the Black Sea, “at the meeting point of the sea and the mountains.”
The second part of the brand is a blue and white snow crystal pattern . . .
So the question is, what do you think of these designs? I have a favorite and an analysis, but before I tell you mine, I want to hear from you.
Before you write, mull awhile. Don’t make a knee-jerk reaction.
What does each logo say to you?
What visual characteristics are “doing the talking”? Which do you like? Which do you not like? Can you say why?
Deconstruct. As designers, it’s our job to make this stuff, and we need to understand what we’re doing.
Keep in mind that a host-city logo represents a transitory event and, unlike the Olympic rings, does not need to endure.
Email this • Add to del.icio.us • Digg This! • Stumble It! • Share on Facebook • Twit This!
Branding, Design, Logo design, type | RSS | Respond | Trackback | | Subscribe to Before & After
168 Responses to “Does Sochi’s Olympic logo work?”
1. December 3rd, 2009 | Back to top
Chris Woodman
The first logo is my favorite.
I can “see” more in the colored-feathered logo than I can in the so-called (semi-) mirrored typography logo. The nice-flowing curves of the feathers suggest relaxation and freedom. The feathers also form a circle shape, which relates to a ring in the Olympic logo. And each feather is colored-matched to the rings in the Olympic logo. (You could take the Olympic logo away and it would still relate, which to me makes it very strong.) This is subtle, but I also like the flower-like serifs in the “S” and “H” in the word “Sochi,” looking very similar to the colored feathers. Lastly, the logo also looks like an angled wreath, somewhat exciting while somewhat confident, like a crown on a king’s head.
It’s simple and bold, grid-like and aligned neatly, but it doesn’t speak to me. If it’s supposed to represent Sochi, the Black Sea, and the meeting point of the . . . and that’s where it loses me. I think there’s too much in the logo for me to understand and relate to it. If the Olympic logo were taken away from this logo, I think I would be lost.
Both logos are nice. I do like the second one, but compared to the first logo, I like the first logo better.
2. December 4th, 2009 | Back to top
Nikola
Well, first of all, I am a citizen of one of the ex-socialist countries. Maybe because of this, maybe because of my taste, I do think that the second variant (the actual logo itself) is WAY better than the “London 2012” logo.
The first one, for me, is some kind of variant of the Mozilla Firefox tail, honestly.
The second one . . . I think the dot needs more rounded corners.
But it is what it is, no matter how many comments we will write here — two or two hundred.
3. December 4th, 2009 | Back to top
Kenny Conley
I must say I felt true disappointment when you revealed that the first logo was not the logo picked. Maybe it’s because I’m sentimental when it comes to the Olympics, and it made me feel comfortable, maybe even nostalgic. It really is beautiful. However, I do realize that they may not be marketing to me (a 30-year-old) but to the younger
generation. I really don’t love the second logo, but I do feel it connects with the Facebook social-media genre of design . . . so maybe it feels more comfortable with that younger crowd.
This strategy does humor me, though. The last two Olympic games didn’t do so well at broadcasting over the web (2008 was better, but the sudden switch to silverlight was a huge debacle). They must realize that this younger generation they’re trying so hard to reach with this relevant logo isn’t watching on the TV, but on their laptops and mobile devices. If they’re going all in with this design, I hope they’ve got a better strategy for viewers than they’ve had in the past as well.
4. December 4th, 2009 | Back to top
The Transformer Studio Firebird brand is marginally my preference over the
sochi2014.ru version. If representing the real Russia is part of the brief, one has gone for a traditional Russia and one for a digital Russia. For me, the sochi2014.ru logo is broken. My first thought was that it was a website and that website was sochi.ru; it took me a while to “see” that the 2014 underneath was part of the web address and that it was actually numbers, not just inverted letters. The colours of it work well for “winter” Olympics, but why should winter games mean a limited colour palette? The Firebird logo, on the other hand, I like the almost-spherical feel of it, which pulls in the idea of a global competition.
As a photographer and not a graphic designer (I read this blog for enlightenment! ;-)), I had a more-instant reaction to like Firebird and dislike sochi2014.ru, so why do I say “marginally” for my preference? Well, although I liked the design, it did not “mean” anything to me. Neither of them did. I had to read the explanation of why they were what they were to “get” them; that made me wonder if they weren’t both trying a bit too hard to be clever!
5. December 4th, 2009 | Back to top
Gary Annett
My reaction to the unveiling while reading this article was twofold — one was almost choking on my coffee out of surprise, and the other was saying “Why?” out loud.
What were they thinking? It’s more of an ad than a logo.
They passed up what seemed to me a timeless Olympic symbol — the laureate wreath — integrated flawlessly into a beautiful logo design.
Instead, they went for an ad for a web site where the Olympic logo seems like an afterthought.
While I like the font and the clever flip of the hi/14, it doesn’t belong on the uniform of an athlete representing his or her country in the Olympics Games.
6. December 4th, 2009 | Back to top
JMCS
The Transformer logo is immeasurably better than the Interbrand logo. Transformer is more colorful, more beautiful, more compelling, more traditional, and more symmetrical than the Interbrand effort.
Squaw Valley, Grenoble, Sapporo, Innsbruck, and Lake Placid rise from the ashes and come alive. Jean Claude Killy, the Japanese Nordic jumping team (1-2-3 on 70- and 90- meters), Franz (Klammer der Hammer) Klammer, and Jim (Jungle Jim) Hunter and his savage Canadian downhill team blaze into crystal view. The cold, wet fog of today’s commercialism dissipates, and the sun glints off the true message of man’s finest athletic achievements.
Skill. Grace. Timing. Balance. Speed. Flight. Daring.
Kill yourself for four years. Lay it all on the table for two minutes at 60+ miles per hour. Lay it all down to fly like a rocket well above 300 feet of very, very steep white. God forbid you botch the landing . . . transitioning from 60 degrees downslope to dead-flat at 70+ miles per hour can raise hell with your body — not to mention two eight-foot sticks of fiberglass windmilling around your head.
The IOC colors are bold and daring in their feather/flame configuration. The circle is balanced and symmetrical. The flame cries out (pure) energy and direction. So, too, the oblique of the composite ring. I could use the same adjectives to describe my long-ago heroes and their spellbinding performances.
The Olympics is about tradition — thousands of years of it in spirit, and a hundred years in practice. This singular event brings the world’s finest together to have a gentlemen’s and gentlewoman’s old-fashioned throwdown. Sport is tradition. Excellence is tradition. So too losing. So too winning.
And . . . sometime . . . the favorite crashes, and the other guy wins.
Tough luck. Athlete or logo — it’s all the same in this case.
Another tear — a tear of a very different sort — comes to mind when I see an internet URL in a predominantly monochromatic Olympic logo. It’s a tear from an aching heart stabbed by the profanity of technology and commercialism.
’nuff said.
7. December 4th, 2009 | Back to top
Kathy Crowe
The first logo is more beautiful, and more integrated. The second looks very harsh. The first and second lines almost mirror each other upside down, so you spend a lot of time looking at that.