Project 2: Olympic Bid Logo
Denver, Colorado
- Over 200 parks
- was supposed to host 1976 winter olympics
- only city to ever decline an olympiad (1970)
- one of the country’s largest Mexican-American populations
- one of 13 cities with teams from four major sports
Past Winter Olympics Logos:
Thumbnails:
Color Inspiration:
Color Trials:
Final Logo:
Rationale:
Upon first receiving Denver as my area for this project I was really excited! It seemed like the perfect match for my outdoor junkie self. As I did more research I really got caught up in the culture of Colorado and I think unfortunately that ruled my early ideas. I wanted it to represent the unique landscape that Colorado has but in that I forgot to make it also representative of the US as a whole, as that is the country that it is representing within the national competition. I went back to the drawing board and eventually came to some ideas that I felt captured the Olympic spirit while also keeping true to the Colorado culture. My final logo features a mark that upon closer look symbolizes a person with their arms raised victoriously, even creating a slight heart shape or circle representative of unity and the shared love of the Olympics. The “arms” of the person are made of a bighorn sheep’s horn and a mountain, underneath water comes up and above that a sun rises as the “head”. The Bighorn sheep is the state animal of Colorado and Denver features a wide array of terrain. One thing that I think brings together the US as a whole is how many natural landmarks, national parks, and amazing things we have in nature. One thing I think a lot of people can agree on is that nature is something to be appreciated and so what better way to show the US than that, rather than the cliche stars and stripes. There is one star, featured on the “face” much like an eye, but it also represents a snowflake. The shape is similar to that of a compass, tying back to the adventurous heart of Colorado. For the color palette, I wanted to keep it frosty and gray like the Rocky Mountains, but also have one cooler warm color because the Red Rocks and darks browns of the ski lodges inspired me so much. So many winter olympic sports take place physically outdoors in the cold mountains and snow that I wanted this logo to depict that connection to nature. I decided to add a frosty texture to the type and shadowing on the logo to show snow or ice creeping up. I also drew the type as I felt after doing type trials nothing looked right with the more brush-stroked look of the logo. It all felt too rigid, so instead I created type that fit around the logo and into itself. I think in the future, maybe in 2038 when my fictitious olympic bid happens (haha), logos are going to be moving away from the cold, corporate, and clean lines we are used to now. Only time will tell though!
