Olympic Pictograms Through the Ages

Very fun video from The New York Times. Designer Steven Heller traces the evolution of the tiny symbols for each Olympic sport since their appearance in 1936.

• Category

  Film & Animation

[James Usill]

Wow, awesome video!, but I have to disagree about the Athens pictograms...

[Oliver Hyde]

nahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[NAD1953]

Oh, yes!

[Daphne Delacruz]

the mexico city designs are one of my favs

[irondj]

Also, the red oval and white image of the Beijing logo is meant to evoke the traditional Chinese personal seal or "chop" -- this would be a person's name carved onto a stone (or ivory or wood) then covered in red ink to create the mark, similar to a wax seal. When you consider this, and the fact that the Beijing sport pictograms are direct offshoots of this design, the whole kit'n'kaboodle becomes pretty damn impressive from a design perspective.

[irondj]

Think of the Washington State Cougars logo, where the stylized letters "WSC" create a cougar head. The running Beijing logo figure actually evokes various Chinese characters written in an ancient style, such as the character "jing" which means capital but is also shorthand for Beijing; and it also can be read as the Chinese characters for culture or language.

[irondj]

The Beijing pictograms are fantastic not only because they stand alone as attractive, unique and functional representations of the various sports, but they also reflect the official 2008 logo -- the white figure of a running man in an oval of red. That logo is not only a figure running forward, but it can also be read as a highly stylized piece of calligraphy.

[Ivan C.]

mexico rules, whit innovation, design and style.

[blackbird163]

aw but i liked the icons for Atlanta 96 :(