| The pictograms 1992
Pictograms had been widely used since Munich
in 1972. The person in overall charge of the visual style of those Games
was the great designer Otl Aicher, under whose direction a series of sports
and services pictograms were created from a basic geometric formula. They
became so widespread as to be practically universal. At the Montreal Games
they were used without any changes, in Los Angeles and Seoul only slight
modifications were introduced. In Barcelona, though the Munich shapes were
still used as a starting point, the break in style was more audacious,
as the geometric formula was abandoned in favour of the characteristic
line of the emblem created by Josep. M. Trias and its representational
simplification of the human body in three parts (head, arms and legs) was
also adopted.
In the sports pictograms, the fundamental
reference point is the human body in the postures which are most characteristic
of the practice of each sport. The competition ground, however, also appears
when necessary for the sign to be understood, as in the case of swimming,
water polo and the nautical sports, in which the water line appears in
various guises. In the other sports, the human body is combined with the
characteristic equipment of each one (net, racket, foil, ball, rifle).
There were thirty-two sports pictograms for Barcelona'92: one for each
of the twenty-five official and the three demonstration sports, plus four
for the modes (synchronized swimming, diving and water polo —differentiated
in this way from swimming itself, the races, which were identified by the
generic pictogram for swimming— and slalom canoeing, which had to be distinguished
from the flat water variety).
Service pictograms
The services pictograms were intended to guide
the public in the surroundings and the interior of the Olympic units, whether
competition venues, training facilities or service centres. In Barcelona
eighty-two were specially designed in the same graphic style as the sports
pictograms and five more were invented incorporating existing symbols for
public services and transport.
(Source document: Official
Report 1992, Vol. III, page 326)
© 1992 COOB'92, S.A., Plaça de la Font Màgica,
s/n, 08038 Barcelona |
