The Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, is home to more than 100,000 treasures from the Olympic Games, including every torch from the Games since 1936. For Studio Blackburn, the museum was a client with myriad variables and moving parts. The Games have a long history that accommodates many sports and countries, thousands of athletes, and the emotional quotient of billions of fans over many years.
“Everyone has their own interpretation of what the Olympics mean to them; it is such a well-known brand. Capturing the rich history was just one element of the project,” said SB creative director Mark Jones in an It’s Nice That article. “We needed to create something that establishes an emotional connection with a vast audience.”
The museum was required to align with the official Olympics brand, which you can learn about here. That meant Studio Blackburn designers had to choose one of three already approved faces for the project. They selected Olympic Headline for its “pillar-like quality,“ then adapted the M to make it look more like the set of three pillars used in the original identity. The designers also adapted those pillars to make them bolder and more reproducible at small sizes.
The new identity has a cohesiveness and elasticity that the old system did not. It has the flavor of the history of the Olympics while looking bold and modern.