The Winter Olympics in Vancouver are coming. Soon. Very Soon. FRIDAY, in fact. This Friday.
I, for one, CAN’T WAIT! I love love love love watching winter sports, and especially winter Olympic competitions. I’m thinking/hoping that this will be the first of many posts about the 2010 Winter Olympics, and I hope that our readers will write in about their favorite events, predictions for winners, and other thoughts and comments. My personal favorites are too numerous to count, but figure skating, downhill skiing, and luge are right there at the top.
As a budding designer, I am always intrigued about the logos, icons, colors, and forms used to represent the Olympics, their host city, and their events. This year is no different. This is the 2010 Vancouver logo:
and apparently somewhere in Olympic Village someone has carved and installed a large stone version. The sportswear donned at the opening ceremonies is always either a fashion do or don’t, and this year I hear that USA is sporting lame-o popped Polos and funny white pants. This year’s individual logos for each of the events are spectacular. The colors blue and green swirl around an illustration of a figure doing the sport represented. Here is an example of the skeleton (to download your own versions and to check out other Olympic fun–schedules, medal counts, event recaps–check out the Official Vancouver Olympics Website.
The New York Times put out a great story on the history of the design of the torch which is worth a read–the article has an interactive time line where you hover over an Olympic year and the torch pops up with all kinds of interesting facts and info.
I had heard that this year’s Olympic medals were created from recycled materials, which I think is very hip and with it. And when I was perusing a new favorite news site vbs.tv, I happened upon this video on how they were designed by a local firm (sorry I can’t embed the video for some reason… but at least it will also get you over to check out vbs.tv). Each medal is different, none like any other, an individual piece of art that the winning Olympians will wear around their necks.
And don’t forget the Olympic mascots–they’re so cute!!
What’s your favorite part about the Olympics? What are you most looking forward to watching?
le-petit-elephant.com 
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10 February, 2010 at 19:50
Mark
1) I really like this year’s logo and mascots. That is a great font selection. And a Yeti?! Bravo!
2) My favorite events are (and thus the events that I will try to sneak in around Anna watching figure skating) are, in no particular order:
– biathlon
– hockey
– bobsled (Jamaican, preferably)
– skeleton (I grew up around the corner from a woman won the silver medal in skeleton back in 2002!)
– CURLING! (seriously, it is incredible on TV)
– short-track speed skating
– ski jumping
I just looked up all of the events that are in the Winter Olympics and now realize there are not all that many. I just named about half of them.
3) Not lots of hyped American storylines before these games. Seems the biggest is the Colbert sponsoring/representing the U.S. Speed Skating team. Who/what else are they going to talk about for 800+ hours of live coverage??? Will we get behind international stars?