Paris 2024 Olympic Logo: A Design Triumph

Like most of us, I have been thoroughly enjoying watching the Paris 2024 Olympics. The games are a spectacular showcase of athleticism, sportsmanship, and international unity. Each event is a testament to the years of hard work and dedication that athletes from around the world put into their craft.

As someone with dual nationality and having lived in several other countries, I find the Olympics particularly engaging. It’s a unique experience to have multiple teams to support and cheer for. Whether it’s Germany, Ireland, Australia, France, or the United Kingdom (Team GB), there’s always someone for me and my family to root for in almost every event. This personal connection to various nations makes the games even more special and emotionally resonant.

One of the aspects of the Paris 2024 Olympics that captured my attention long before the games began was the design of the logo. I fell in love with the design five years ago, and in 2019, I wrote a piece on the multi-layered design of the Paris 2024 logo. The logo is a brilliant fusion of historical significance and modern aesthetics, symbolizing both the legacy and the future of the Olympic Games. You can read my detailed analysis here.

Execution and Implementation

Seeing the Olympics come to life in Paris, both online and on TV, has been nothing short of impressive. The Paris 2024 Olympic Games Organising Committee has done a remarkable job in implementing and executing the brand. Every detail, from the venues to the broadcasting, has been meticulously planned to ensure that the spirit of the Olympics is conveyed to audiences worldwide.

Yesterday, one of the events I watched was the 3×3 basketball medal events, and noticed another way that the Paris Games Committee had included the Paris 2024 logo. The logo was present on top of the basket for the cameras looking down through the net. This subtle yet impactful branding element showcases their commitment to integrating the Olympic identity seamlessly into every aspect of the games. It’s these little touches that are making the viewing experience so unique and memorable.

The Opening Ceremony

The opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics was another highlight. Broadcast online and on TV, the ceremony was, at times, breathtaking. It was a beautiful blend of tradition, culture, and modern performance art, reflecting the vibrant spirit of Paris and France. The use of the logo throughout the ceremony was masterful, reinforcing the brand’s presence while enhancing the visual spectacle.

The creative direction and execution of the ceremony set the tone for the entire event, creating an atmosphere of excitement and anticipation. It was a fitting introduction to what has been an extraordinary Olympic Games.

Lasting Memories

While we still have five days to go before the Paralympic Games in Paris, the memories of Paris 2024 will be with me for a long time. The innovative use of the logo, the spectacular opening ceremony, and the thrilling competitions have all contributed to an unforgettable Olympic experience.

The Paralympic Games are set to continue this legacy, showcasing the incredible talents and inspiring stories of athletes from around the world. I look forward to seeing how the Paris 2024 Organising Committee continues to uphold the high standards they have set during the Olympics.

Conclusion

The Paris 2024 Olympics have not only provided us with outstanding athletic performances but also a masterclass in branding and event execution. The logo, with its rich layers of meaning and elegant design, has been a constant presence, enhancing the identity of the games. The meticulous planning and creative flair demonstrated by the Organising Committee have ensured that these games will be remembered as a benchmark for future Olympic events.

As I continue to watch the remaining events and gear up for the Paralympic Games, I am filled with a sense of pride and admiration for what Paris 2024 has achieved. The games have brought the world together in celebration of human potential and unity, and the Paris Olympic logo will remain a symbol of this extraordinary global event.

Reaching the underrepresented affinity groups in your community and audience

Almost all communities have different audiences and affinity groups, such as women, LGBTQ+, people of colour, and more. I have written about this before about using design to fix a structural issue impacting civil society. Forbes invited me to contribute to an expert panel on how marketing leaders can reach these affinity groups.

Forbes just published my contribution as part of this panel: 12 Methods Marketing Leaders Can Use To Reach Underrepresented Groups.

There is excellent content in this expert panel written by fellow industry leaders. If you want to ensure you can reach the underrepresented groups in your community, be sure to read this expert panel.

Delivering service quality at scale

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

One of the challenges we all face is scarce resources. Not having enough time, tools, money, or team members to deliver can be an everyday experience. This scarcity can be overwhelming to those involved in situations where demand exceeds the available supply of a product or service. But could it be that we are looking at our problem in the wrong way?

In a recent post by Seth Godin - Mouth to mouth resuscitation, he points out the value of this lifesaving intervention. But it does not scale. You cannot perform Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) on more than one person at a time. Yes, you could scale it by training more people, but it is still a service delivered singularly, one at a time.

"It might be the best way to save someone in distress. But it doesn’t scale. You can only offer this sort of lifesaving intervention to one person at a time." — Seth Godin

This analogy has a direct relation to the concept of communications, design, and creative work. As we produce art that's on-brand and relevant to the world we are experiencing, how do you deliver bespoke art at scale?

So far in my career, I've built, managed, and lead the introduction of multiple platforms and technologies. These platforms have supported marketing, content, brand, design, video, and training. In speaking with my team leaders over the last few weeks, I've asked them to to to consider how they could deliver double the amount of work they produce now using tools, technology, and automation?

Seth's post has prompted me to think about this from the root cause. To continue his analogy, if we deliver CPR and do it well, we cannot scale CPR. But is CPR what is required? How else can we provide services around brand and design, content, media, events, video, animation, and web?

This awareness causes me to rethink how else we could solve the problem and produce the same quality results? The service must still restore and maintain the health of the patient.

What service can we deliver of the same quality or better - using technology and automation? One of the questions I'll also be taking a deeper look at is how we could use training to enable the user to self-serve and deflect the need for the service entirely?

Create. Share. Activate. Empower - The Adobe 2020 Creative Residency and Community Fund

It’s May, so it must be time to meet the new Creative Residents for the 2020 Adobe Creative Residency programme. This year, Adobe has welcomed two new residents, Christina Poku, a London, UK based photographer.

She’s using photography, GIFs and set design to make staged scenes that explore how technology can create growth, build community and change barriers to access.

The second creative resident for 2020 is Maddy Beard, a UI/UX interaction design based in Denver, Colorado.

Maddy is exploring the use of interaction design to promote mindfulness in daily life. She’s partnering with brands to design experiences that help people use tech as a tool rather than a crutch.

Both of these designers have some impressive work in their portfolio (Christina and Maddy). Combining this with their goals to build community, reducing barriers to access, and to use technology experience as a tool suggests there will be some exciting work from our Creative Residents for 2020.

In addition to the standard program, Adobe has created a new $1 million Community Fund to support creative communities.

This year, in response to the extensive need in the creative community for monetary support and career guidance, we’ve decided to expand the programme. In addition to the new Creative Residents this year, we’re excited to announce a $1 million Creative Residency Community Fund.

Adobe will be using the Community Fund to fund creative projects and to commission work for Adobe projects. You can make an application to the Community Fund online.

I think it is great that Adobe is doing something new to support members of the creative and design industry during these unprecedented times. You can check out the 2019 Creative Residents here.

$300,000 of prizes for visionary mobile design

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]If you're a creative designer, you may like to submit your work to the Huawei Theme Design Awards 2020 Huawei Theme Design Awards 2020.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

To push the boundaries of design, we are gathering artistic talent from all over the world.

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]The competition is aiming to celebrate visionary art by creating designs that explore the aesthetics of designing for mobile devices.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]There are four categories that you can enter: themes, watch faces, wallpapers, and cities. You can submit one entry per category. With $300,000 in prizes. One grand prize, 6 prizes in each category, and 98 special prizes.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]The deadline to submit your entry is 31 May for the Cities category, and 01 July for the three other categories.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Featured image by Hal Gatewood on unsplash.com[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Working remotely using Teams and Office 365

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Like many others, I am now working for home as part of efforts to keep our colleagues and our teams healthy and manage COVID-19 infection rates. As a regular remote worker and user of Microsoft Office 365, this transition has been seamless for me.[/vc_column_text][us_image image="7294" size="us_600_400_crop" align="center" meta="1"][ultimate_spacer height="32"][vc_column_text]Using core elements of Office 365 such as Exchange and SharePoint to power Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, OneNote, and Planner means we have been able to continue without missing a beat. My telephone extension is also a Teams number, so I can still make and receive telephone calls as usual (with the benefit of emailed voicemail transcript and MP3 file).[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]For those who are new to remote work, the Microsoft blog has had several posts to help with this transition.

• Staying productive while working remotely with Microsoft Teams
• Working remotely during challenging times
• The top 9 ways Microsoft IT is enabling remote work for its employees

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]IT leadership and Microsoft deserve kudos for building a sustainable solution for businesses and teams of all sizes. I can work from anywhere with access to the tools and resources I need to deliver[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Multi-layered design

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games Organisers on 21 October 2019 released the emblem and logo for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

Paris 2024 logo

This logo design is on three levels. It combines three different images in one - the gold medal, the Olympic flame, and Marianne, the official symbol of the French Republic.

“Using a human face as our symbol is intended to convey that these Games are for the people, by the people. It reflects the universal values of sport, liberty and equality.”

— Julie Matikhine

The Games Organisers will be releasing more of the Paris 2024 design system, team logos, and uniforms.

“By associating three iconic symbols – Marianne, the Olympic flame and a gold medal – the Paris 2024 emblem elegantly reflects the people-focused, fraternal Games France intends to host. And because the Olympic and Paralympic Games form two sides of the same coin, in 2024 they will share the same emblem for the first time ever, symbolising the pursuit of the same vision and the same ambition for both events.”

— Paris 2024 Design System (https://www.paris2024.org/en/design/)

As a designer I love to inspect professional design systems. The Paris 2024 Design System is a pleasure to read and to view.

“We believe this logo captures the essence of Paris as a forward-thinking, modern capital city that is also proud to celebrate its rich culture and heritage.”

— Bernard Lapasset, Co-Chairman of the Paris 2024 bid

In conclusion, this design is an incredible work of art. Above all, to deliver so clearly on three different levels, with a design in itself that is modern, Parisian, feminine, and powerful.

Rethinking the exit we will all make

Design is such a powerful tool that when it is used well, can be life-changing. My Godfather is a funeral director and has been for many decades, so this article on rethinking and redesigning death and funerals had a great resonance with me.

Change is ever-present. If we want to affect the outcome of a process using design, we need to approach it from all angles. Sometimes we need to rethink the entire process from top to bottom, and inside out. Creative Review has a great article about rethinking a process that we all encounter, that of funerals - Exit Here: The Future of Funeral Planning?

While the core elements of a funeral remain the same: collecting a body; preparing it for burial or cremation; and the conduct of a ceremony. By being willing to reconsider how the funeral industry approaches its core service, Exit Here has used design thinking to reimagine the customer journey and experience.

There was also a conscious decision to “all but eliminate black from the funeral world”, … opting for a neutral but more cheerful blue instead.

Ben Masterton-Smith, Director at Transit Studio

Without changing the function of a funeral parlour, but by changing the visual appearance of a funeral parlour, subsequently changes the experience from the start. Similarly, looking at how you can change other pieces of the user journey, such as bright yellow coffins and modern blue urns help to shift focus. By including options such as the choice of being buried on a farm the design team have, in short, reimagined funerals. We are all different, and no two funerals should be the same.

“You want to leave people with a positive memory of your life. You want people to think, ‘that’s the person I knew and loved’ – and I think we need to try and change the compass on how people see the culmination of their life. Of course, no-one wants to die, but we’re all going to – we know it’s coming – so let’s make it a more joyous affair, particularly for the people left behind.”

Oliver Peyton, Exit Here

This is an excellent example of rethinking the approach to a problem and improving the experience for those involved. What could you reimagine by changing your approach?

Photo by Kerri Shaver on Unsplash

Using design to fix a structural issue impacting civil society

Young boy receiving a vaccine

The social scientist in me loves the passion with how Mark Wilson opens his article using design in favour of vaccination.

Let the anti-propaganda campaign begin!

Mark Wilson

This is a great article in Fast Company around using design to produce a change in perception around vaccination. The problem around vaccination is not confined to America alone. Vaccination rates are decreasing in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe such as Italy. A good read, with real-world images to communicate messaging around vaccination.

The misinformation behind the anti-vaxxer movement has gone far enough. The United States is on the precipice of a major measles resurgence because of pseudoscientific propaganda. We need more resources that truthfully and clearly communicate the science from the CDC and WHO that proves that vaccines are safe—and you should have your children vaccinated for everything from the flu to polio.

Mark Wilson

What else could we achieve by rethinking how we use images to tell a story?

Photographer: Heather Hazzan

Our world is

Our world is random and messy. Collecting data does not make it more perfect or more controllable.

Giorgia Lupi, Partner & Design Director, Accurat

Image by H Heylin