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Design and the 2026 Winter Olympics

I was a ten-year old hockey player when the greatest Winter Olympics ever happened in 1980. So, this is my favorite quadrennial event.

First thing that struck me this year was the super cool duo-tone icons Peacock created for their TV app.

Look at these beauties!

Sorted from favorite to least favorite. After hockey, it’s curling and skiing around shooting stuff for me. I loved the bobsled and luge back in 1980, but my tastes have changed somewhat. I miss ski flying, which was ski jumping, but to the extreme. They discontinued it after a couple jumpers went into orbit. Now, I really like the snowboard roller-derby race down the mountain.

Resplendent!

Then there’s the official app. It gets its most important function exactly right. The event calendar loads with in-progress events scroll down to see the future, up to see completed events. Perfect. Once you click on an event, you can click on the country flag to see the roster for that team or click the athlete in individual sports. You don’t get a ton of info on the athlete pages, but you get hometown and the athlete’s social links.

Side note: If you have a ten-dollar bill handy, check it out. The most beautiful of our current currency, I have a spread of them as my phone background.

Insert sad trombone failure tune here

This “26” (Zb, UΔ, 2G?), on the other hand, might be the handy work of the infamous Inver Grove Heiqhts water-tower designer.

The bad 26, being the primary logo for the games, is prominent and ubiquitous. The games kicked off with curling. On every throw, the rocks slide past this logo living large on the ice. It stands out among the worst in this set along with Sochi and PyeongChang. Squaw Valley ’60 is cool. I can almost smell an envelope and letterhead with that stamped on ’em. Sapporo ’72 is sooo ’70s. We had those things all over the bottom of our bathtub. Innsbruck ’76 is an uninspired disappointment. Sarajevo, Calgary, and PyeongChang forgot how many sides a snowflake has, and I get what Vancouver was going for, but that rock man needs to look a little more athletic like Beijing. It’s abstract, but you can see a skater or skier in there.

The environmental design and branding have been very nice with the Aurora Borealis look on the hockey boards and dividing walls in other venues. And the way the biathlon course is nestled into the mountains is idyllic.

It took me a while to solve the 26 riddle. By comparison to the Peacock sport icons above, the official Milano Cortina icons definitely look like part of a set with the weak 26.

Once again, we have a winner in Lake Placid.

Two extremes in hockey-jersey design

Finland looks great. France? Eek. Germany’s yellows are a downgrade from the previous whites.

Meanwhile, Canada and Czechia have stepped up their look since the World Juniors in December-January.

Explainer videos

The official Olympic site wins this battle. Before the Olympics, I watched the explainer on Peacock and it was bad. I can’t find it now. They must have gotten some feedback and reconsidered.

See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_uGg8mFVjs

But finally …

The finest art of the Olympics is in the moments created by the athletes.

branding app design + graphic design + iconography + interactive design

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