the 2024 olympic and paralympic games says paris 2024 is about celebrating sport, style and culture
having previously hosted in 1900 and 1924, paris becomes the second city ever to host the summer olympics three times after london, which hosted the 1908, 1948, and 2012 games. now let’s talk about the 2024 olympics edition. way back in 2018, anyone in the world who could write and speak french was able to participate in a competition to design the logo for the 2024 paris olympics. sylvain boyer, the founder of ecobranding and its partner agency, royalties, participated in the creative exercise to represent his roots as a paris-based artist. in 2019, the logo and visual identity for paris 2024 was launched. the logo combines two iconic symbols associated with the games – a gold medal and the olympic torch – with an image of marianne, a female figure representing the french republic. for the first time the logo will be the same for both the olympic and paralympic games.
boyer knew he wanted to represent french culture and do something that had never been done before. but his team never imagined they would win. “we were just a small, young company, not a big advertising group,” he said. “on paper, we were not the type to win a competition like this.” and yet they did win.
now, boyer’s logo — which is either a woman’s face or flames, depending on how you view it — will be seen by billions. one year after the logo reveal, the paris olympic committee announced a total parity between male and female participants, with 50 percent of this year’s athletes being women — a historic first! (in los angeles in 1984, only 23 percent of the participants were women, and in tokyo 2020, only 48.8 percent.)
here, boyer takes us inside his process of designing the emblem, including the underdog story of how he did it inside his paris apartment, part of the backdrop of the city’s protests; why we need the olympics today more than ever; and what it means to create a logo that can elicit so many reactions around the globe.
above>the story of the paris olympic logo goes back to 2018 when sylvain boyer watched his city change before his eyes. all images courtesy of sylvain boyer.
this is the first olympic logo with a woman on it. when we first designed the logo in 2018, paris began seeing a greater movement for social equality for women. we saw this movement everywhere, from the streets of paris to tv to cinema. every week in 2018 there was a strike for a social cause, whether it was a women’s march or fridays for the future.
in this environment, i started drawing these designs with the initial idea of making a moniker that represents sports in europe. but this type of imagery is always one of a male’s performance. we wanted to do something different. we thought, what happens if we take a woman’s face and put it in the performance arena? and so the shock, the semantic shock, comes from that. our country has an allegory, marianne, who is the symbol of democracy and the republic. in fact, we see a lot of women’s allegories all over the world — think of the statue of liberty, for instance. when we designed our logo, we jumped off of our country’s cultural context and historical legacy.
paris was an important city to make this choice because it was the first city where women participated in the olympic games, exactly 100 years ago. when we presented it for the first time to the olympic committee, we showed a survey showing the remarkable evolution of female participation in the olympics since 1924. it got everyone excited. but this choice was a more interesting one for the olympic committee than it was for us — because it was the olympic committee who decided to be represented by a woman. today, it’s still a delicate subject matter.
for the paris 2024 president tony estanguet, the primary statement of the evening was the shared logo. “it was key for us since the beginning of this project,” in the crowded aftermath of an event that had been witnessed by french sports minister roxana mărăcineanu, paris mayor anne hidalgo and athletes such renaud lavillenie, the world pole vault record holder. “we will have the same venues, at the foot of the eiffel tower, the chateau versailles, all those kind of iconic venues will be used for the olympic and paralympic games.
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in the beginning, the idea was to make a female logo, and in fact, it used to be more feminine than it is today. we first designed it with red lips, but the olympic committee said we had to change that. a lot of people only see the flames and they don’t see a woman when they first look at it, and that used to bother me, but today i like that. it’s like a game of perception. if you want to see only the flame, you see only the flame. if you want to see the woman, you see the woman. if you want to see a gold medal, you see a gold medal.
i didn’t expect to get the response that it did. we knew before revealing it that it might be an offense to some people. it was a huge conversation through the media. within 24 hours of revealing it, there were about 500 press releases about it. on social media, we saw so many mixed reactions. i don’t use social media, and people told me, “don’t go on twitter.” but i was too curious. all of the violence online was weird and new to me. looking back, i feel like it was a good experience because it changed how i do my job today. it’s a good thing that a logo can elicit so many reactions, and it makes it even more popular. i’m sure this logo will have an impact on the story of the games.
it is even more important to have this logo now than when i designed it six years ago. as a designer, you design for the future. back then, i couldn’t have imagined what the world would look like today. usually, when you think about the future, it’s always about a more positive future. so i didn’t imagine the pandemic, financial crisis, or the european emergency with ukraine and russia. today, we need the olympics now more than ever, because the games have a clear promise. it’s the promise of peace.
above> it’s like a game of perception. if you want to see only the flame, you see only the flame.
the next phase of the visual identity, along with a series of pictograms, has just been launched and it continues this approach of blending past and present. inspired by the parisian spirit and french culture, the identity has been influenced by fashion, food, architecture and history.
above> an example of the pictograms system that will appear via the way finding system // below> paris 2024 olympics mascots, “phryges,” symbolize french freedom
medallists at the paris olympics will be rewarded with a piece of the eiffel tower, organisers said on thursday as they unveiled the hexagon-shaped medals forged out of scrap metal from the monument. the idea was to link the games with symbols of france, said thierry reboul, creative director of paris 2024.
“the absolute symbol of paris and france is the eiffel tower,” said reboul. “it’s the opportunity for the athletes to bring back a piece of paris with them.” designed by jeweller chaumet, the 18-gram hexagon tokens, representing the shape of france, are made of iron from past refurbishments of the tower stored for years in a warehouse whose location is secret.
above> thierry reboul, creative director of paris 2024.