At a ceremony on the top floor of the USC Skyscraper in Downtown Los Angeles Tuesday at sunset, LA’s bid for the 2024 Olympic Games revealed it’s new logo, a multi-colored silhouette of an angel in flight, soaring towards the sun.
A release by the bid said “the figure is illuminated, lifted and empowered by the rays of the sun, which emanate from a sparkling point of light at the figure’s heart—a palette of colors often seen in the city sky both at dawn and sunset.”
“The sun itself, which LA calls its brightest star, inspires LA 2024’s slogan, Follow the Sun.”
LA 2024 Chairman Casey Wasserman said, “Everyday people follow the sun to our city in pursuit of their dreams, spurring unprecedented creativity, innovation and progress. We’re inviting the world to Follow the Sun to California in 2024, to join us in LA for an Olympic and Paralympic Games that signal the dawn of a new era for the Olympic Movement.”
Over 100 U.S. Olympians joined Wasserman and LA Mayor Eric Garcetti at the logo unveiling in a location that offered panoramic views of proposed Olympic venues and the California coastline and mountains.
Garcetti explained “this logo capture’s the essence of LA – a soaring belief that through hard work, creativity and ingenuity, we can follow the sun and reach the highest levels of success.”
The logo launch followed a day-long teaser campaign of messages on Twitter and Instagram with the hashtag #FollowTheSun. Los Angeles-based creative agency 72andSunny designed the logo and produced a short film for the logo’s presentation.
The logo and branding of a bid is changed for the Games should the city win the right to host, but the design and message could be an important, if subliminal messaging tool and may help sway an important vote or two when International Olympic Committee (IOC) members vote September 2017 in Lima Peru. A strong visual identity could also help strengthen domestic support for the bid – always an important element when the IOC Evaluation Commission does its on-site inspection and public opinion polls are taken.
Bids are licensed, and required, to use the Olympic rings as part of their logo for the duration of the campaign as long as they follow a strict set of marketing and promotion rules. The logos are approved by the IOC before they are put into use.
The emblems for the 2024 Games follow a new naming pattern that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) seems to be endorsing for this bid, the city name stands alone in bold and the year is separated within the standard text below and above the ring logo: “Candidate City, Olympic Games 2024.” In the past, the city and year have typically appeared linked in the emblem.
Rome showed its Colosseum inspired logo at a presentation to 2,500 school children in December while Paris revealed an Eiffel Tower evoking emblem just last week when it was projected on the Arc de Triomphe. Los Angeles chose a logo representing it’s nickname “City of Angels” instead of an historic structure, There has been no word from Budapest on whether we’ll get a sneak peek of its design ahead of the release of their bid book documents likely later this week.
On Wednesday, phase 1 of the bid books are due into the IOC’s temporary headquarters in Lausanne and will cover topics such as vision, Games concept and strategy, and will include financial guarantees. The documents could be released to the public this week, shedding more light on each city’s plans.
