As some of you may know, the winter olympics of 2010 will be held in Vancouver, Canada. I just saw the graphic identity of the games and they look pretty awesome. The graphics tell a unique story of the culture of Vancouver through great design. They bring together a balance of urban and natural representations to form really cool illustrations.
One of my favorite things about the graphics is the way they handled the figures representing each sport. In past Olympic graphics, most of the illustrations representing each sport have been done in a simple silhouette style. That's not the case this time. Even though they are still silhouettes, the Vancouver graphics give a very detailed, almost photographic sense of the athlete performing the sport. They give the athletes facial expressions to show all the hard work they go through to reach their goal. "The sport illustrations are highly stylized with an exaggerated,
close-up perspective of the athlete’s performance. The designs were
inspired by modern sport photography, pop culture, fashion illustration
and Manga-style comics, giving the athletes a heroic look to serve as
an inspiration for young spectators"
Olympic games have a long tradition of creativity and great design. Each country hosting the games creates a unique story to represent who they are and to bring the world together, and that's exactly what Vancouver did.
I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.