• Final stage of preparations have begun • LOCOG reveal the ‘Look of the Games’ • Part of a nationwide effort to dress the UK for Olympic and Paralympic celebrations
London 2012 has today offered the first preview of how the Olympic sports venues will look to spectators and global television audiences. The first fully-dressed venue – the Water Polo Arena in the Olympic Park – has been unveiled, showing how the Games-time ‘Look of the Games’ will be rolled out across London 2012 venues.
New images released today show glimpses of how the venues will look during Games time. In total, LOCOG will dress 32 sporting venues and 61 non competition venues across the UK, with a specific design system and colour scheme for each venue. These designs extend across every aspect of the Games, from spectator arrival into Heathrow all the way through to the colours and designs of seats in the venues. The designs have been applied to well over 250,000 individual designs, from the tickets, the buttons on the 70,000 Games Maker uniforms, to the design of medals, street dressing and even gardening guides for local authorities.
Waterpolo Look. LOCOG
Vibrant colours have been selected to complement the venues and sport – including purple for the Olympic Stadium and other heritage venues, blues for water based sports such as aquatics and water polo and rowing, oranges and magenta for indoor and contact sports such as cycling, basketball, weightlifting and boxing. Over the last three years LOCOG has worked with broadcasters and photographers to ensure the colour schemes and graphics help create a stunning backdrop for the sporting action, as well as taking advantage of new technology such as 3D and HD broadcast.
The venue dressing is part of a much wider national celebration that includes use of the iconic Olympic Rings and Paralympic Agitos. Local Authorities across the country are using the London 2012 look in cities, towns and villages. A wide range of materials have been made available, from banners to bunting and floral displays. All the materials used to dress the venues and cities have been procured in line with LOCOG’s Sustainable Sourcing Code which is based on industry best practice. LOCOG have a strict zero waste direct to landfill objective and 90% of all Look materials will either be repurposed or recycled.
The Look of the Games will extend from the venues across the length and breadth of the UK. Giant Olympic Rings have also been unveiled across the UK, giving local communities a focus point for their Olympic activities and celebrations throughout 2012. The Agitos symbol, which was projected onto the White Cliffs of Dover to mark 100 days until the Paralympic Games, will be launched across the UK in August as LOCOG mark the transition to the Paralympic Games.
Greg Nugent, Director of Brand, Marketing & Culture at LOCOG said, ‘Over the last few years we have worked really hard to make sure that we dress up, as a nation, and celebrate the Games. We now have what must be the world’s biggest set of Rings in Richmond Park, banners and bunting in Glasgow and now we turn to finishing the job with our venues. We look forward to creating a stunning back drop for the worlds’ greatest athletes’.
Sir Nicholas Serota, Director of the Tate said, ‘This represents a hugely impressive piece of design work that I think all of the teams at London 2012 can be proud of.’ Nick Sykes, CEO of FutureBrand, part of McCann Worldgroup, said: ‘We are absolutely thrilled to be the partner with LOCOG in the design of the Look of the Games. It’s been amazing to see the culmination of lots of hard work over come together so beautifully orchestrated across all touchpoints, from the stadia, ticketing, in and around London, to the Olympic Park. We feel that the Look of London 2012 truly reflects the spirit of the Games, and goes hand in hand with our heritage of great British design.’
Waterpolo Look. LOCOG
