PROMOTING THE UNKNOWN CITY
Disclaimer: The work implemented here is conceptual and has not been accepted for commercial use by the International Olympic Committee. All rights to the Olympic rings and brand remain the property of the IOC and the respective NOCs but all other brand concepts designed, created and displayed on this page belong to Tag Me Designs. In no way must any of the work or ideas displayed and/or expressed on this page be reproduced in any manner or form without the express permission of Tag Me Designs.
INTRODUCTION
For my final year dissertation, I wanted to take the skills and knowledge I had obtained from seventeen months at IMG Studios to the next level, and challenge myself to produce a professional set of assets that demonstrated growth as a motion designer.
I decided to create a 360-campaign based around a concept Olympic Games in Cairo 2032 – the city is aiming to bid for hosting duties for that year. The objectives for this project were:
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Create an event logo which would connect all assets
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Create a concept title sequence as part of a graphics project for the Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) that host broadcasters could use if needed
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Design and create graphic and motion posters as part of an advertising campaign for one or more official Olympic Partners.
LOGO DESIGN
To start with, I researched previous Olympic event logos – they all had a national/cultural aspect to them with many also incorporating sporting themes. Those that hosted only once or for the first time, would normally use an obvious connotation as part of their logo. Those countries that hosted it a second time or more used more abstract imagery to convey themselves to the world with a new logo.
As Cairo nor Egypt have never hosted an Olympics event before, I chose to go less abstract and try to reflect key cultural and architectural themes in my initial draft designs.
Following discussions with my supervisor, we quite liked the hieroglyphic nature of the lettering and harking back to Ancient Egypt for the imagery. I also based the image to the familiar wall paintings one would see on pyramid walls of the familiar Egyptian pose. The figure is adapted from an ancient painting of The Hunter and I simply created a silhouetted figure and swapped a snake in his hand for a spear/javelin-shaped object. The typeface used is Trajan but the “A” and “R” letters are designed by me to provide the hieroglyph theme.
The colours used were in reference to Cairo’s climate and environment with the oranges representing the sandy plains, the reds – the heat, the turquoise and aqua blues representing the meeting of the Nile and the horizon of the clear blue skies. I also created mono print logos to use on other paraphernalia where the colours may clash with the background.
TITLE SEQUENCE
For the title sequence, I looked at many different examples of sporting competitions, including recent ones from past Olympics. Most included some sort of architectural/cultural element in them as well as reference to the sport(s). Using brand colours/elements in some way, even if not obviously notable, was to be expected as well and of course, the sports body logo should be clearly visible.
Researching Cairo and Egypt was a bigger task. The country has an intriguing history and diverse culture that has reflected the changes in the world from its rulers to its landscape. Now while the Olympic code states that any promotional material should be free from religion and politics, I was instead able to reflect the rich historical change of Cairo through the different architectural sites that were constructed up to the 21st century.
Every site constructed also shares themes with at least one Olympic sport and that is how I paired them – but without giving too many clues as I wanted this get viewers interested in the city of Cairo and research it properly and even look to visit.
I rebuilt all or part of the chosen sites in Cinema 4D in a low-poly style (a current trend in MoGraph) – this style allowed me a bit of creative licence when it came to depicting the environments and the action. The athlete footage was obtained from stock footage and either keyed or rotoscoped out due to time and financial constraints – ideally these would have been filmed bespoke from multi-camera angles. The athlete footage was tracked on to a textured background to create a silhouette thus making the individual anonymous so that an audience member could imagine themselves in that position and be inspired.
Rotoscoping and compositing was completed in Adobe After Effects with some elements of Red Giant’s Trapcode plug-in used for effects where C4D’s particular system was not as good. The music was created bespoke for the sequence by me and produced in Logic Pro. All final elements, including colour correction, were completed in After Effects.
FIRST DRAFT SEQUENCE
OLYMPIC PARTNER ADVERTISING
These posters were based on real-life Olympic partners and past campaigns were researched to develop these.
The Omega posters were a continuation of the company’s past “Great Moments in Time” campaign which promoted the Winter Games. Here I extended the theme to the Summer Games and chose two, high-profile, inspiring events: Jesse Owens’ all-conquering athleticism in Berlin 1936, and Tommie Smith and John Carlos’ podium defiance during Mexico 1968.
The idea here, as with previous posters, was to emulate the artistic aesthetic of the decade in question. For 1936, art deco was the prevailing style whist in 1968, colour and psychedelia were popular. This campaign has no linking brand save for the company logos located inconspicuously at the bottom of the sheets. This campaign, even in its official state, was always about the Olympics and inspiration more so that it was about Omega – I have kept that same decision for my concepts.
I created simple animated posters out of these designs which I envisioned being displayed in public areas such as concourses and digital street displays. The animations aren’t supposed to be too distracting and mainly there to grab the attention of the passing public.
For Coca-Cola, I created proof-of-concept outlines only due to time constraints. These pretty much followed the example of the company’s Olympic billboard poster campaigns of yester-year, using inspiration and cultural themes in its advertising but not straying too far from the Coke branding – in complete contrast to Omega’s approach.
Conclusions
Overall, I feel I managed to achieve all my objectives for both my personal growth and the assignment milestones. It is extremely hard to carry out all parts of a 360-campaign by yourself and I found that out first-hand. Of course, there would be help for real life projects and/or one would delegate different aspects to team members with such a huge job spec, so I take comfort in that. And there would be rolling feedback which would have helped me alter elements where necessary and earlier instead of waiting until later in the process.
I have received feedback which I had aimed to implement before the global Coronavirus and subsequent lockdown scuppered my plans. So even though it is not yet finished, I have included the title sequence here as a first draft in the hope that you can see what I delivered as my original vision. I will work on improving the transitions and removing some altogether and fine tuning other aspects of the animation.
As my most complex MoGraph project to date, I am proud of what I have achieved but know that there is more to learn and a lot of progress to make as a designer. I tried to be bold and radical with some of these elements knowing that this was a personal project and I could take a few more risks - these risks were intended to help me learn more than anything else. And whilst not everything worked, I have still learnt far more from making these errors than if I were to have played it safe. These are lessons that will stay for me for the rest of my career.
