The Olympics pictogram are one of those dream projects for many designers, including me. Most designers would list Otl Aicher‘s set for Munich 1972 and the Mexico 68 collection as their mental references. Surely after all the fiasco created by the 2012 London logo, the 2012′s pictogram would be a very tough gig to tackle then, a fact recognized by ‘Yasmine’ of the London 2012 Brand Team in their Blog. The new set was apparently done by British design firm SomeOne, which despite the fact that the controversial 2012 Olympic logo made such a break from tradition, the pictogram are more in line with historical approaches. And with the two style versions available – a silhouette version used for high visibility and information-based applications, and a dynamic version used both as decoration and where a more exciting version is called for, such as on posters or banners – it just add the flexibility of the 2012′s pictogram. Finally London Mayor Boris Johnson calls the pictogram ‘bold and dynamic images which capture the energy and color of the games’, and praises their ‘graphic simplicity’. Though my favorite Olympics Pictogram was the one done by Kenya Hara for the Beijing’08 (Not Used) , still Kudos to SomeOne for the nice set.

the two versions of the Pictogram

Munich’72

2012 London Visual Application

the new pictograms will be featured on limited edition adidas t-shirts on sale from october 24 to celebrate 1,000 days to go until the olympic games.

also check out the Olympic museum for the history of the Olympics Pictogram