Olympics identities are always a tricky business, and often controversial. Most recently, the London 2012 Olympics logo has drawn a lot of fire for its gaudy, 80s-throwback look. The project would be challenging for any designer when you think of the goals; to uniquely set apart a city visually, and to have those visuals not be so stylized that they fail to translate across countless languages involved in the games.

I chose Chicago as a city because of it’s rich visual history. The identity I came up with showcases the blues of Chicago (the sky, the reflective buildings, the water) but with a definite feeling of Summer brought in by the warmer accent colors dominating the cooler tones. The pictograms showcasing the various sports are meant to be modern and convey a swooping motion, a feeling of movement.

The logo is based on the Chicago flag, featuring four stars with horizontal blue bars. Because the bars symbolize the Rivers (and other bodies of water) I utilized a reflection to get their visual across. The stars symbolize (from left to right) Fort Dearborn, the Chicago Fire, World’s Columbian Exhibition of 1893 and the Century of Progress Exposition of 1933. To play off of the elemental theme established by the reflective water, setting the Great Fire’s star aflame was a natural choice.