I am totally non-athletic/non-sporty in any way, but I love love love the Olympics. Especially the Summer Olympics with all the bad-ass track stars and super sexy, super high-tech swimsuits. How excited am I for the academic quarter to end and the Olympics to begin—well, there are no words to describe it.
From a design standpoint, past Olympics serve as fantastic case studies in identity and icon design. Mexico 1968: a design classic. Barcelona 1992: Javier Mariscal's controversial Cobi, the Cubist Catalan sheepdog. Nogano 1998: that sweet and poetic Snowflower. London 2012: an absolute debacle.
I haven't had time to thoroughly investigate the Beijing graphics, but I did just discover the Official Mascots of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games: Beibei the Fish, Jingjing the Panda, Huanhuan the Olympic Flame, Yingying the Tibetan Antelope and Nini the Swallow. They are just lovable in the way that only Asian cuties can be.
As a side note, I feel that the Olympics should be free of politics and that protestors/boycotters are naive fools whose actions primarily harm the athletes who deserve to compete on the global stage. I was shocked to find that I agree with President Bush (or his handlers) who said that the U.S. would take a stance of "quiet diplomacy" rather than boycotting the Olympics' Opening Ceremony (sorry, Hillary, I'm not with you on this one). Eight years in is a little late for diplomacy, but hey, better late than never.
Stay tuned for a thorough analysis of the Beijing 2008 graphics.
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