One of the most quintessential design elements for each Olympic Games is the pictograms used as visual shorthand for each sport. Anyone who watches the Olympics will find themselves immersed in a sea of these small icons appearing throughout the Games in all sorts of contexts.
It’s essential to have a visual language for the Olympic Games since many athletes and viewers speak different verbal languages. “Pictograms were designed to create a universal and easily understandable language,” writes Markus Osterwalder in his book Olympic Games – The Design. Osterwalder is a graphic designer and a bonafide Olympics historian obsessed with Olympics design. Aside from his book and his accompanying The Olympic Design project, Osterwalder also curated the exhibition “Olympic Language – Exploring the Look of the Games” at the Olympic Museum in Switzerland, which was on view in 2018 and 2019.
A new set of pictograms is designed for each Olympics, unique to the visual language of those Games and part of the greater branding system to create a cohesive look. According to Osterwalder, this has been the case since the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics, which featured pictograms designed by Katsumi Masaru and Yoshiro Yamashita using isotype iconography. Invented by Viennese scientist Otto Neurath in 1925, the isotype is considered the origin of our modern-day icon and emoji lexicon.
Every set of pictograms redefines the genre and marks a moment in time through their look, feel, and style. Clinton Yates of ESPN recently started a conversation around pictograms on X, referencing those designed for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.
Another highly regarded set of Olympics pictograms accompanied the Munich 1972 Summer Olympics. Created by graphic designers Gerhard Joksch and Otl Aicher, these pictograms used the 1964 Tokyo designs as inspiration but with a more formalized structure. “In contrast to Tokyo, the Munich pictograms were brought to a formally consistent style by a consistent application of constant elements in standardized grids,” writes Osterwalder. “This system is based on a square whose geometry defines the four directions of the movement phases.” Joksch and Aicher developed a “body alphabet” for these pictograms, using the basic shape of tongue depressors as the core visual building block for each figure.
We all watch the Olympics for sports, of course, but it’s clear that a subgroup of designers and design lovers are equally as invested in the achievements of the pictograms. During the Tokyo 2020 opening ceremonies, the organizers even conceived and wonderfully executed an Olympics pictogram tribute performance that really got people going.
So what about the pictograms designed for the 2024 Paris Olympics?
As shown in the video above, Paris 2024 has done away with the typical pictogram convention and instead created what they call coats of arms. “Pictograms are a thing of the past,” the Paris 2024 Brand Director, Julie Matikhine, said when they unveiled the coat of arms re-imagination. The set comprises 62 coats of arms across the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which are featured prominently throughout the city, venues and stadiums, television broadcasts, and everywhere else. Movement has been incorporated into each design, creating animated versions to add more intrigue and flair.
The coats of arms incorporate three key elements:
- An axis of symmetry often mirrored across a diagonal.
- A depiction of the ground.
- A representation of the sport through a piece of equipment or gear affiliated with that sport, but not of the athletes themselves.
While many of these designs are visually compelling and pleasing, they are far less legible than the classic Olympic pictograms of yore. Given that pictograms’ primary purpose is clear and immediate communication, we must admit most of these coats of arms miss the mark. Bucking convention is commendable, but here’s hoping Los Angeles 2028 brings back actual pictograms.