For my research I focused heavily on traditional Japanese patterns used in fabric and weaving. Each pattern has unique symbolism and meaning. As I scanned through at the patterns and their figurations, I realized that the Kagome pattern, a basket weave, resembled a snowflake. That was my launching point. I liked how the pieces nestled in and fit together; it's like how each country in the Olympic Games comes together for such a special and historical event. The Kagome pattern symbolizes protection from demons, so the technical symbolism kinda misses the mark for the Olympic Games, but I think it could be spun to represent unity and strength, since a basket weave is pretty strong. Below on the left are the initial patterns I whipped up in Illustrator. These provided great supporting imagery for future facets of the Olympic branding process.
The primary typeface I used for this project is Semplictica, a simple, geometric typeface. I shot for a very clean, even futuristic looking font which is really elegant in all caps. Another thing I paid attention to when choosing a face was the letter shapes; I wanted the Ms and As to have sharper points in order to feel alpine and wintery. I don't really know how to describe it, but to me the typeface Semplictica feels icy. It gives cold energy.
I designed my poster with a series in mind. I was interested in using bold and contrasting colors to create "slant-rhyming" pop-art posters with interesting compositions, only the colors switched around. I landed on a falling-snow effect using my repeating logo mark, which guides your eye down to the mark at the bottom, which stands out against the others and anchors to the text. The color palette for this entire branding concept was designed to serve this type of style.
For my pictograms, I wanted the figures to be just as geometric and fragmented as my logo design, the pieces fitting together in the pictograms also mirrors the logo. The triangle background for the pictograms was inspired by the little triangles that can be found hidden within the array of snowflakes when they fit together. Just like the snowflakes fit together geometrically, so do the pictograms.
The tickets were designed using my logo fit together to reveal the image behind.
