40 years ago, Otl Aicher and his team designed the revolutionary identity system for the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. UCA Canterbury in the UK is celebrating this iconic work with an exhibition featuring posters, pictograms, information design, and range of print and promotion materials from the games. The exhibit will be held from June 29th — July 31st at the Herbert Read Gallery.
Eye Magazine also has a nice write-up of the exhibit, along with some photos.
a look at a similar exhibition in 2008 in the US: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joecompany/sets/72157620430165459/
I wonder if we’ll get London 2012 retrospectives in 40 years…
40 years old and still looks great. The 2012 design doesn’t even look good now. Had my tickets through recently and the maps in the guide are really poor in terms of design. Still think that Futura was the wrong choice of typeface, let alone the custom display font and logo.
For 2012 I really feel that a dedicated design team, overseen by a designer with a vision for the design as a whole, would have been a much better idea than having several agencies working from a poor set of guidelines. It is like nothing has been learnt and developed from the successful Games of the past. I am sure the Games themselves will be very good, it is just the design that makes me embarrassed that this is what the UK has to show the world.
Munich olympics aesthetic is one of my favorites, even the mascot is nice!
http://blog.ounodesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Waldi-mascot-of-the-Munich-Olympics.jpg
Mexico had a nice approach too.
And yeah, this year’s didn’t make if for me either.
Mexico ’68 is not my cup of tea.
Josef Albers, Max Bill, Victor Vasarely, Allen Jones, and many other genius did poster that year. I feel like “it was better before”
That’s awesome, I got to Joe Miller’s exhibition a couple of years ago down here in California at the San Jose State University. I wrote a little post back then: http://www.javiergd.com/blog/?p=21
Cheers
Love the creative here. Agree with you Jonathan, I’m not sure the current olympic identity system is quite as powerful.