Comments on: All Olympic Logos, Ordered By Quality

By: William Williams

William Williams — Wed, 15 Sep 2021 01:30:30 +0000

I personally believe that the Salt Lake 2002 logo is the best one of them all. It’s a snowflake, the desert, and mountains all at once. I also really like the Calgary ’88 logo.

By: Neal Meyer

Neal Meyer — Fri, 10 Mar 2017 05:36:11 +0000

OK. I really disagree with a few of these, but to each their own. The Barcelona ’92 icon is ICONIC. The Times New Roman was used to convey the “Latinness” of Barcelona and the red, yellow, and blue are primary colors so they relate to the ancientness of the Mediterranean.

Calgary ’88 represents a maple leaf and the logo also has hidden letter “C”s in it representing Calgary and Canada and there are even hidden cowboy boots on the end since Calgary is a western city. It’s actually quite ingenious but I agree with you on it using the wrong typeface.

Munich 1972 was designed by Otl Aicher the same guy who invented pictograms. It’s a sun of rays and it is iconic in my opinion and still timeless even today especially using the Univers font before it was even cool to use Univers.

I also really like LA 84 and Seoul 1998 which I both feel are energetic and timeless. Tokyo 1964 is simply the dot on the Japanese flag and lacks ingenuity. Mexico 1968 is really too complex and hard to discern in my opinion. It get the whole ancient Mexican art thing but it’s too complicated.

The logo for Lake Placid 1980 is for the bid, not for the games. The one for the Games themselves is awesome and one of my favs. The two “bowls” represent that it was the second time Lake Placid hosted (first in 1932) and the mountain shapes represent the Adirondacks and it even makes an “L” shape. Timeless stuff.
The official LP logo is at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/99/1980_Winter_Olympics_logo.svg/747px-1980_Winter_Olympics_logo.svg.png

Cool read!

By: Justin McGuire

Justin McGuire — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 16:53:52 +0000

My favorite Olympics logo will always be this one for Boston 2024 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B63oqa3IYAARUeI.png . I love it because 1) it’s an essentially Boston design, and 2) it reminds me that we were smart enough to say no.

By: Andy Borgmann

Andy Borgmann — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:28:44 +0000

I am glad you explained more about Mexico. You’re right. It’s better in the context it was placed in.

Disagree with Los Angeles. It screams 80s to me.

Sochi was so close to great, if they just dropped the .ru and something that conveyed it was the winter Olympics.

All in all great list and as always I appreciate your perspective on design. Learned a lot from you over the years on that.

By: Mike D.

Mike D. — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 06:19:18 +0000

Simon: Aha, the Opera House. Makes sense! Thanks.

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 06:10:00 +0000

Hi Mike,
I enjoyed reading your olympic logo ranking.
The Sydney Olympics logo uses of the shapes of Australian aborigine boomerang in combination with the sun and the profile of the Sydney Opera House to form the dancing figure. I thought it was a clever device that captures the playfulness of Australia, the location and the event, but as I am from Sydney I may be biased .