What Project Worldwide Creatives Think of the Paris 2024 Logo
The logo for the 2024 Olympic Games has inspired a range of reactions — here are three from inside our network.
The comments below are excerpted from “Paris 2024 Launched the New Olympics Logo This Week, and Designers Aren’t Thrilled With It” by Doug Zanger, for Adweek.
Angie McDonald, design director, Atelier by ARGONAUT
“While I love the idea of the typeface and appreciate the nod to art nouveau typography on Paris metro stations, this logo falls short in execution. What’s with the lowercase “i”? Overall, the mark just comes off as bulkier and less sophisticated than its inspiration.
As for the icon, the choice to represent Marianne (the personification of the French Republic) may have been with good intentions. But not only does it feel too “inside baseball,” but I think it misses the mark of what it appears to be going for, which is inclusivity. Honoring female athletes is a great idea. Still, the spirit of the Olympic games is about ALL kinds of people from ALL countries, putting aside their differences to compete with one another. By skewing the icon to a gender, the logo completely contradicts the original message of inclusivity and feels more like a feminized flame that’s trying too hard.”
Rob Kottkamp, CCO, Partners+Napier
“Clearly, a lot of thought and insight went into this, but they went too far down the conceptual rabbit hole to the extent that the mark requires an explanation to be understood. I also do not get the spirit of sports when I look at it. I see a flame and a woman, and the woman has been reduced down to her hair and lips. This comes across as tone-deaf, and if we’re trying to pay homage to Marianne — I don’t think this effectively does that. That said, I do love the typeface. It embodies art nouveau design culture, and I wish some of that would have come together a bit more in the overall identity design.”
Drew Wallace, creative director, Motive
“To use a Marianne as the inspiration for the Paris-based Olympics is smart for France to do, as it is expected. Its execution, however, is cheap. The juvenile and otherwise unrefined depiction of the rather complex and historical figure is mirrored only by the elementary flame she’s carved from. It’s unclear if this is communicating liberty or strength — as the Marianne suggests — or is celebrating the female athlete. It feels feminine without purpose. It’ll be interesting to see if female athletes will identify with it as women or reject it as athletes. Finally, there seems to be no expression of what the global event stands for, or that it’s an event at all. Perhaps its only saving quality is the distinct and well-done Art Deco typography — a style that originated in France.”
To see other creatives’ opinions of the design — some positive, most negative — you can read Adweek’s full coverage here.
