If anyone in this class is as obsessed with Olympic opening ceremonies as I am, you might have watched the iconic Tokyo 2020 Opening Ceremony this past summer, where performers acted out each sport’s official pictogram for the games. This pictogram-centered performance actually paid homage to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, which was the year that Japan introduced innovative pictograms to represent each sport, as well as other wayfinding symbols (i.e. finding first aid, restrooms, etc.) for international tourists coming to watch the games. These symbols, designed by lead designer Yoshiro Yamashita and his team, became such a blockbuster success that it became official policy for every country hosting the Olympics to design a unique set of sports pictograms.
As our class has begun our exploration into the work of Susan Kare and iconography design in general, I was reminded of the rich design history behind these Olympic pictograms and wanted to share an informative video about the evolution of Olympic sports pictograms which inspired me to make this blog post. For anyone who is interested in learning more, I provided the video below:
1 Comment
Elisa Zhang · September 30, 2021 at 10:53 pm
I was never aware pictograms were such a big part of the Olympics, so this is super interesting! I watched the pictogram performance you uploaded and that is SO cool, it really brings to life the still icons that we are used to seeing. Big fan of this and will definitely be on the lookout for these in the future!
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