How Many Hours of Olympics Watching is Too Many Hours of Olympics Watching?

Okay, I realize that this is 50% a repeat post I already wrote for heartbeast/wolfgang , but I have Olympic fever bad. I have been seriously studying the branding of the Olympics, not just Vancouver 2010, but the individual countries and their choice typefaces, logos, colours, and uniforms. For example, the German speed skating team uniform has the huge letters GER in Gill Sans, an interesting choice, given that Gill Sans is the official/unofficial typeface of England. NBC created its own Vancouver 2010 logo it airs on screen with its broadcast, that has such a particular American feel. Serif letters, looking like 3-D steel, and powerful mountains in a crest.



Continuning with talk of Olympic logos, while I have hated on many aspects of the official Vancouver 2010 logo and oh-so-predictable iconography chosen, there is one aspect that I completely love. I love that Sasquatch is one of the mascots of the Olympics. Quatchi, as he is officially called, is the best mascot I can remember since that bird thing with the really long rainbow nose. Remember him? Was that from Barcelona? Regardless, I am pleased that the Canadian Olympic Committee (I made up that name) deemed Sasquatch an appropriate representative of Canada and then created the cutest mascot the Olympics will ever see.*

*I cannot guarantee that the Olympics will never produce a cuter mascot, but I challenge them to improve on Quatchi.



It should be noted that in my short quest to find a picture of Quatchi I somehow ended up on in the French area of some sort of Olympic site for children and made this picture. Im pretty sure I'm supposed to print it up and colour it in now. And by "made it" I mean I dragged Quatchi where I wanted him to be, and put in those mushrooms because they are the happiest mushrooms I have EVER seen.

For complete self-plagiarism I am including my comments from a few weeks ago on Olympic posters. The golden age of Olympic design really feel between Rome 1960 and Moscow 1980. These posters are amazing examples of clean lines and geometric imagery, really iconic. The Olympics should be saluted for their lengthy history of very simple and minimalist poster design. It's amazing how 1960 was the last use of serifs and more defined imagery, moving on instead to the incredible 1964 Tokyo poster. Each poster manages to capture the times and the identity of the city quite effortlessly and with such simplicity.