The 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics has truly been a beautiful affair.  Riding the wave of an impressive opening ceremony,  the Olympics’ visual language, or “Transmoflection” (as the VANOC team calls their brand creation) represents countless hours research, concept-development, and near flawless graphic execution.  Sure there’s been some great logo designs (personally I like Mexico and Los Angeles); but, never in Olympic history can I remember such a fluid overall brand for the games.

The beauty is not about the Ilanaaq or Paralympic emblems, sports pictograms, illustrations, or color palette in particular.  Rather, it is in the way these individual elements work together to create the overall sense of the Olympics brand within a context unique to its host city, Vancouver, Canada.  My interpretation is that the emblems and colors are inspired by more cultrual, historical, and physical characteristics of Vancouver, while the illustrations and pictograms represent the dynamism of the Olympic athletes.

A good example of how they meshed all of the different characteristics together is on the Official Vancouver 2010 website. You can click on a pictogram to navigate from sport-to-sport and notice changing illustrations in upper right-hand corner all-the-while the Ilanaaq emblem stands sturdy in it’s space at the upper-left.  Not only is each pictogram/illustration combo a unique representation of it’s respective sport; but, there is clear aesthetic continuity that adheres to a detailed Graphic Standards Manual (which in and of itself happens to be a fine piece of design).

My hat goes off to the VANOC team, said to have been researching and developing this brand for 8 years – it was worth the wait!