Bruno - there is an article by Peter Bilak about this font and a new interpretation of it in ’DotDotDot 7’...

Matt Appleton

Design Observer on the graphic design of the Olympics.

Michael Gross worked as a designer on the 1968 Olympics. He’s got a page on his site showing some examples:

http://www.michaelcgross.com/mexico/index.html

He might be able to answer some of your questions.

I also tried to find information about this when I was working on my Thesis project. Unfortunately for whatever reason, information on Olympic systems seems incredibly difficult to find. The only thing I’ve found in book form was “Size Matters” by Lakshmi Bhaskaran. You might also find some additional info from this thread: http://typophile.com/node/13446

Eye magazine issue #56 (Summer 2005) has a piece about the ’68 Olympics too.

It’s amazing how little concern there is for type in an organisation as global and big as the Olympics. Billions are spent every two years to build new sports facilities, but it would never enter the committees mind to design a typeface family, consisting of multiple scripts, that addresses the issues of identity and accessibility. The cost would be negligible, too, considering the benefits.

Bruno Maag

Bruno, I don’t know that it would be a wise expenduture to create a typeface when as you mentioned they spend Millions of Dollars in creating sports facilities. I would suggest they use a well designed open-type typeface with support of multiple languages. Why guild the lily?

Lance Wyman created the identity and wayfinding for the Mexico City Olympics.

http://www.lancewyman.com/

Perhaps you can get some of the information you are looking for from him.

James

At the Thessaloniki conference last year there was a presentation by one of the people involved in the design elements used to promote the event - might want to check the archives for the name of the speaker and her contact details. Also someone at fonts.gr might be able to put you on to the people who commissioned the Gill redesign.

Cheers, Si

Nice, James. I agree with Bruno, why not have a custom face? I don’t know if the cost involved would be any more than licensing a pre-existing typeface.

Hi, Bruno and all the others!

I am Panos Koutsodimitropoulos. At the Thessaloniki conference [2nd International conference on typography and visual communication (2004)] that ’sii’ suggested I organized the workshop ’The Olympic Games signage’.

My MA (2002, Derby University and Vakalo School of Art) was for ’Olympic Sport Pictograms’ (in greek). At that time, it was very hard to find any relative info for the elements of Olympic Games’ visual identity.

You will find more info for the official typefaces of each Olympiad by reading the Ofiicial Reports of each olympiad. The ultimate web source for finding those Reports is: http://www.aafla.org:8080/verity_templates/jsp/newsearch/search.jsp the search page of Amateur Athletic Foundation.

:-)

Yasou Panos! Thank you for the links and your expertise in this arena.

ChrisL

Bruno’s article appeared in Creative Review and is posted here... http://www.daltonmaag.com/news/32.html

Hi Panos, Sorry I’d forgotten about your workshop. The talk I was thinking of was by a woman involved in the identity work - it took place in the main theatre. I’ll try to dig up my old programme and find her name.

Yasou ke sena, dezcom!

At this time, I am preparing a web site that will include all the visual elements (+ analysis) of Olympic Games. Soon to a screen near you...!!!

Panos

Theodora_Mantzaris
http://afroditi.uom.gr/uompress/2nd_int_conference/Theodora_Mantzaris.ht...

That’s the one! Thanks Panos.

An interesting Olympic Tale (somewhat brief but very true)

I was having a casual conversation with a few Compugraphic/Agfa country managers during DRUPA 88 in Düsseldorf, when Sr. Benet, the Cg manager for Spain mentioned that Barcelona was to host the 1992 Olympics. He had heard that the design committee was interested in using ITC Barcelona for obvious reasons, and I said, “like hell.”

At that point, with the blessing of Agfa’s senior management, I started an effort to have a custom type family created for exclusive use by COOB92 (Organizing Committee for Barcelona Olympics 92) for all branding, official communications, press releases, signage/wayfinding systems, etc.

After a series of meetings and proposals, COOB92 (the hosting country’s Olympic Committee bears these responsibilities) agreed that Agfa-Compugraphic (as it was officially named then) could develop and have exclusive distribution rights for an official and unique typeface for the Barcelona 92 Olympics. In return, Agfa-Cg would pay a fee of $1.3 million to COOB92 to become an official sponsor. The main proviso (there were more small print and minor provisions to the agreement) was that the NAME and BRAND of AGFA could not be used or displayed because that would violate provisions of one of their biggest sponsors — Kodak.

I was able to justify the $1.3 million sponsorship fee to my management since the global PR and subsequent sales of fonts and typesetting equipment (high-end machines were still proprietary) would offset the expense. (Business, business, money, money.)

I was then able to officially meet with the designated Olympic design team, Quod Diseño y Marketing, S.A., and began working with Josep Maria Trias and Geordi Mantegna on their requirements for a custom type design. Since originally ITC Barcelona was one of several designs being considered for the wordmark, they were open to my suggestion to view new design sketches by Ed Benguiat.

After many months and several trips to Barcelona, Ed Benguiat and I finally presented a design that Trias felt could work. Several months later, an official press meeting was held in Paris to announce that Catalana would become the official type family for the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympic Games. (The official announcement of the Rotis type family by Otl Aicher was also announced to the international press.)

Shortly after all the PR, Agfa announced that Compugraphic, now wholly owned by Agfa, would now be named simply AGFA.

This violated the proviso of the Olympic sponsorship since Kodak was to be the ONLY film company sponsor, and their sponsorship fee was a whole heck larger than the $1.3 million we were coughing up. Also, it was a perfect excuse for Agfa to withdraw from the committed fee, since by then, proprietary sale of equipment and fonts were dwindling and the sale of a single type family in PostScript fonts was not enough to offset the expense.

Josep Maria Trias, who was not completely enamored with the Catalana design, opted to use Times New Roman for all branding instead, since he felt it was a timeless classic and widely accepted (yikes!).

Adios Catalana

At which point you and Ed went and had a few beers?

ChrisL

Chris —
one evening when we meet at the next TypeCon, I will show you a trick that Ed Benguiat always did requiring a glass of beer, a sugar cube and a pencil. (and gullible or drunk audience of course.)

> Namely, how type had been used in past Olympic games. I am not that interested in the logos, or the posters, but in the ‘peripheral’ material, such as press releases, signage, tickets, etc.

Bruno, one of the best uses Univers ever had was in the design programme developed by Otl Aicher for the Munich Olympics of 1972. Of course, for obvious reasons, it hurts to remember that event. However, its typographic design was probably the best of all Olympic games in recent history. It was brilliant.

I remember, there was a special issue [?] of Novum Gebrauchsgraphik with a feature story on that project of Aicher.

Norbert you have a great memory. Now I remember that about Barcelona.. I remember someone saying we were doing the font for the Olympics then it died.

Do you remember the first Agfa Type ad when they bought Cg? the purple and yello Afga?

I remember hearing from a I think Howard Berman about how Otl Aicher died. I think he said he was shoveling snow.

”...requiring a glass of beer, a sugar cube and a pencil”

What, no lemon and a funnel?
:-)

I’ll take you up on that story in Boston fellow geezer :-)

ChrisL

This month’s Communication Arts has a short article about the identity created for Torino. (Although I’m not a fan of the typeface choice.)

> Bruno, one of the best uses Univers ever had was in the design programme developed by Otl Aicher for the Munich Olympics of 1972. Of course, for obvious reasons, it hurts to remember that event.

Maxim, without my diverting too much from the main topic, I too remember the 1972 Munich Olympics and the brutal event. It would also be interesting to see what the new Spielberg movie MUNICH retains or replicates of Aicher’s designs. You can see his sport event icons behind Jim McKay’s famous broadcast in this screen shot from the movie trailer.

Maybe Mark Simonson will see the movie and give us a report.

> At which point you and Ed went and had a few beers?

Or maybe a few pitchers of sangria.

I was at the Barcelona games, and I’m not ashamed to admit that
I was too busy looking at things besides the fonts... Or maybe it
was that Times is so “timeless” it just faded into non-identity...

> Josep Maria Trias, who was not completely
> enamored with the Catalana design ...

One thing though is this: maybe you and Benguiat
allowed yourselves to try to push through a design
in spite of what the client really wanted? Maybe the
desire for Barcelona to become more cosmopolitan was
mismatched to that overly quaint design. It’s possible
that the original idea of using ITC Barcelona (which
might have been just a rumor/anecdote of sorts) was
motivated too much by the mere name; and the failure
to give up on a font that happened to be named Catalana
early on was in turn due to the nascent pseudo-nationalism
of the time.

hhp

Leave it to Hrant to argue that Ed Benguiat and Norbert, despite their repeated visits to Barcelona, were pursuing private whim at odds with the client’s wishes. How in the world do you think the client had any knowledge of typography at all? They picked their first font because of its name.

Remember, Hrant always knows more about your project than you do, even if it took place in another country.

—
Joe Clark
http://joeclark.org/

FYI — Custom type development for 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympic Games (bulleted executive summary version)

• The development of a unique typeface design to be used exclusively for the branding, collateral, PR and wayfinding system was widely accepted and anticipated by COOB92 (Organizing Committee for Barcelona Olympics 92) and Quod Diseño.
• The interest in using ITC Barcelona was more whimsy than serious, and never made it to Quod’s “short list”
• I participated in many design planning sessions at Quod reviewing Josep’s development plan, scope of project, schematics, and design manifesto, prior to inviting Ed Benguiat into the process
• Part of the branding mission was to celebrate the unique culture and arts of Catalunya (Joan Miró, Juan Gris, Antoni Gaudí)
• Ed and I were passionate about the project and both of us have deep roots in España... all the more for us to celebrate the culture
• On my own I began research into the rich type history of the area, and presented several designs for revival (or as inspiration) from FT Nacional... and yes, I did go to Neufville
• Ed did his own research and sketch development of potential faces
• The design selection process with Quod lasted for many months, presenting numerous type sketches and variants to Trias via fax, DHL, and in person (I always prefer meeting in person in Barcelona... don’t you?)
• Ultimately it was Josep Ma Trias’ decision as to what design would be developed
• Once a face was selected, the design refinements and weight expansion began
• The naming of the custom type family underwent another process involving the Barcelona Olympic Committee’s marketing services manager... and yes, it was VERY POLITICAL
• The selected name Catalana was just a small expression of Barcelona’s fierce independent spirit, since the games were to be held there and not in Spain from their viewpoint
• The name of the official typeface for Barcelona 1992 Olympics was selected (after extensive international trademark search) and the official press announcement was made BEFORE the actual refinement of the type family’s design
• The custom type project was abandoned due to sponsorship issues BEFORE the design was ever fininshed (no where near finished — still sketching character design)

— Adios Catalana

So Norbert, how about if you, Ed and me go get a beer (or Sangria) in Boston :-)
I promise not to make you put together another bullett list and the beer is on me :-)

ChrisL

you, Ed and me go get a beer

Only if you bring a sugar cube and a pencil :-)

But no lemon and funnel :-)

ChrisL

Joe, don’t make this seem more confrontational than it really is.
Ergo: don’t be Joe Clark, I guess... Well, then sorry, nevermind.

> They picked their first font because of its name.

And one of my points is that maybe they failed to communicate
what they REALLY wanted (and maybe Ed and Norbert were guilty
of not worrying enough about the potential of that) because the
font was called “Catalana”. Or maybe the font was named after it
was “too late”, and the client was a total buffoon, who thought
that a design could work even though he didn’t actually like it,
and then just used Times. Not uncommon, sadly. But it’s still a
part of our job to communicate* with buffoon clients. :-)

* More like conduct seances with their distant, nebulous intellects.

—

Norbert, thanks for the full details - it’s
always a rare treat to get the inside scoop.

> I always prefer meeting in person in Barcelona… don’t you?

:-)
In fact my meeting with Neufville’s Wolfgang Hartmann is
now integral to my memory banks like seafood is to paella.

hhp