The yr was 1968 and the Summer Olympics (or the Video games of the XIX Olympiad, as they have been formally referred to as!) have been held in Mexico Metropolis, Mexico. The Mexican Olympics have been notable for a lot of issues: they have been the primary Video games hosted by a Latin American nation, they have been the primary Video games to characteristic a lady torch-bearer lighting the Olympic flame…they have been the Olympics the place extra world data have been damaged than in every other prior Olympiad and so they have been the Olympics the place two African-American athletes took a stand for human rights by infamously elevating their black-gloved fists.
However maybe certainly one of my favourite issues about that Olympics? The progressive (and loopy glorious) graphic design system created to rejoice these Video games. The bar had been set excessive by Tokyo in 1964, and the Mexican Olympic committee needed to make an identical splash! Check out this:
Pedro Ramirez Vázquez, Chairman of the Organizing Committee and an essential Mexican architect, took the lead on the design committee and finally chosen Lance Wyman as head graphic designer (USA) in addition to Eduardo Terrazas (Mexico) because the lead on City Design.
Sketches and shade explorations from inside Lance Wyman’s studio:
“As I recall there have been solely two obligatory necessities; that we use the official 5 ring Olympic image to determine the video games, and that we use three languages—Spanish, English and French—for all written communication. The Mexico 1968 logotype, which was primarily based on conventional varieties from Mexican tradition in addition to being Sixties pp-art kinetic typography, set the tone for the complete graphics system. It was designed by integrating the official 5 ring Olympic image into the quantity “68” to create a parallel line typography that steered imagery present in Mexican pre-Hispanic artwork and folks artwork. The logotype powerfully expressed a way of place and tradition and visually exclaimed the Video games have been in Mexico.”  — Lance Wyman from The Olympic Picture: The primary 100 Years, Compiled & Edited by Wei Yew  © 1996
I simply love all the things about this look. That lettering is terrific and it’s so clever—combining conventional Mexican imagery with Nineteen Sixties op-art. No marvel these graphics are so legendary.
The designers additionally created a easy however daring and colourful icon system to assist code all the assorted occasions.
The superb factor was how the emblem and graphic system have been built-in into each visible aspect of the ’68 Video games, from tickets to occasions, to stamps, postcards, indicators, packages, even clothes!
I simply like it….it’s nonetheless as contemporary and trendy at this time because it was again then, don’t you agree?
I’ve to say I really like the Olympics and I’m SO excited for the Sochi Video games developing subsequent month. Final time the Winter Olympics rolled round, Wolfie and I have been loving watching Shawn White and the snowboarders, Apollo Ohno and the speedskaters….and naturally, my childhood favourite, the determine skating competitors! Which occasions are you trying ahead to most??
