Few issues have a design legacy fairly just like the Olympics: it’s laborious to consider one other occasion or organisation that has each a historical past spanning greater than 120 years (the primary trendy Olympics’ was in 1896), and a definite graphic id every time it takes place. Since each Video games has its personal distinctive ‘emblem’ logomark system, the occasions turn into type of minibrands underneath the huge umbrella that’s the Olympics, all united by these iconic 5 interconnecting Olympic rings.
To make use of a really twenty first century model design manner of placing it, The Olympics has effortlessly garnered a set of distinctive, ownable graphics and model parts (the rings; the color palette of black, gold, blue, inexperienced and pink; the three pillars; the torch, and so on.). So a quick just like the rebrand of the Olympic Museum should be concurrently extremely thrilling, and moderately daunting – a problem Studio Blackburn confronted when it was tasked with doing simply that earlier this 12 months.
Housed in a 11,000 square-metre, five-storey constructing designed by Mexican architect, Pedro Ramírez Vázquez (additionally recognized for his important contribution to the visible id of Mexico ’68) and Swiss architect Jean-Pierre Cahen, the Olympic Museum opened simply over 30 years in the past in Lausanne Switzerland (often called the “Olympic Capital” because it’s the place the Worldwide Olympic Committee, or IOC, has its HQ). It homes the world’s largest and most full assortment of Olympic heritage, counting greater than 100,000 artefacts spanning greater than 2000 years together with Olympic torches, kits and historic sportswear, medals, and a whole wing devoted to the organisation’s graphics and branding historical past.
“Our aim was to create a robust emotional connection and generate pleasure across the expertise and its artefacts, within the museum in Lausanne in addition to internationally by way of their web site,” says Studio Blackburn. “The vast majority of the longer term viewers for the Olympic Museum will expertise it remotely. It was essential that we approached this with the idea of a museum that lives domestically and thinks globally.”
The transient was very clear that the museum needed to very a lot have its personal id, distinct from that of the Olympic grasp model. Among the many greatest adjustments Studio Blackburn led to was a “rationalisation of the present model structure”, which led to it dropping the ‘The’ from the brand and shifting away from the Olympic Museum’s earlier acronym of ‘TOM’.
That’s a wise transfer: ‘TOM’ appears completely devoid of something to do with the Olympics except you already know what it stands for – it jogs my memory of these good however barely twee plimsoll kind footwear, or only a shouty shortened model of Thomas.
One other extra sensible purpose to drop the ‘the’ is that the id needed to function not simply in English, so ‘the’ however in French and German, too, which makes the acronyms change anyway – beginning with ‘l’ in French and ‘d’ in German. All of it feels much more cohesive and dynamic as merely Olympic Museum/Musée Olympique/Olympisches Museum.
Whereas the museum needed to stand alone from the Olympics masterbrand, it needed to share that sense of the profundity and energy of the Video games and its historical past. Museum identities, broadly talking, have to present the impression of confidence and experience – in spite of everything, folks typically go there to study issues, and feed current pursuits – however with one thing as highly effective because the Olympics, this id wanted to fulfil the additional job of conveying emotion.
And the place the excellent typography is non-nonsense, daring, and assertive (extra on that in a second); the general id system Studio Blackburn created is underpinned by its expressiveness. Collaborating in, and even simply watching the Video games is a large expertise for folks, so capturing that vitality throughout all property, each static and in movement, was very important.
The third essential aspect, alongside demonstrating authority and emotion, was making the entire thing really feel iconic – similar to the Video games itself and its graphic legacy. There’s little doubt that Studio Blackburn has achieved this by way of paring every part proper again, utilizing the weather related to the Video games as constant nods to the theme whereas making it very a lot stand proud as a museum in its personal proper.
As such, the color palette makes use of blocks of pink, yellow, inexperienced, blue and black; whereas the emblem system combines a monochromatic model of the interlocking rings and the three pillars image, which represents the Olympics values of ‘excellence, respect and friendship’ and nods to its roots in Historical Greece.
One of many standout elements of the brand new id is the best way that these pillars are used within the typography to type the capitalised ‘M’ of the museum’s identify. The personalized letterform of the wordmark is someway each playful and fashionable – just like the id extra broadly, it really works on lots of totally different ranges because of its flexibility.
Studio Blackburn retained the previous customized typeface, Olympic Headline, designed by Julien Hébert of Montreal-based studio Principal. The typeface was a part of a set of fonts commissioned as a part of the overhaul of the Olympics model by Canadian Company Hulse & Durrell, which began in round 2020 and noticed its full rollout at this 12 months’s Paris 2024 Video games.
The museum id has many parts which can be shared with the principle Olympics model, together with that typeface, however Studio Blackburn has been deft in fulfilling the a part of the transient that ensures the museum is a separate entity in its personal proper. “The id wanted to make sure that the Museum maintains its affect throughout the cultural world and emphasises its significance past sports activities,” the studio explains.
This side involves the fore most prominently in an exquisite collection of posters. These look very hanging, and really feel completely modern (I actually can not get sufficient of that typeface and its customized ‘M’) – and crucially, they every hero an object or artefact housed within the museum. Utilizing a backdrop of one of many Olympic rings colors in a daring block tone, the remoted objects are positioned in a brand new context, taking them into the world of artwork, design and tradition whereas nonetheless clearly remaining rooted in sport.
The brand new Olympic Museum designs handle to strike the right steadiness between enjoyable and authoritative; seamlessly marrying sport and tradition in a manner that feels contemporary, and by no means compelled. Studio Blackburn says that it wished the designs to point out the world that “the Olympic flame is for everybody,” and the brand new visible id right here is undoubtedly doing a hell of lots of legwork relating to furthering that trigger.
