Medal Development

RIO FONT ™ AND OLYMPIC MEDAL DEVELOPMENT

It's been a tough few years for Olympic typefaces. London's 2012 event used this sharp-edged, jagged, and much criticised font and the next Olympics, 2014's games in Sochi, will probably feature this futuristic heavyweight lettering. The good news is that the Rio Olympics may come out ahead of the three, with a conceptual typeface designed by the Rio-based studio Dalton Maag. To make the typeface site-specific, Dalton Maag incorporated lines and features of landmarks in Rio like the "Christ The Redeemer" statue, as well as the surrounding natural features.
















Dalton Maag designed the font for the upcoming Rio 2016 Olympics. It is gorgeous. The great swooping curvature used in the characters was inspired from real geographical forms and physical objects that are in connection with Rio.


Magg and his team were inspired by human movement and historical monuments around Brazil. 

Font and its inspiration ?

Rio 2016tm font to me is the most successful already because they have used human movement and body shape to create the swirls and fluid movements. This example above is some Brazilian competitors  in action and the graphics team have taken this movement and translated it into letter form.  Whats striking about this is it looks so effortless like a brush to paper. Ironically this is what the team did next got a pen or a brush and just drew letters and shapes.

Again a Brazilian rhythmic gymnast and her sharp edgily movement is taken advantage of, this is the first time sporting movement has been incorporated. Just like Nike the goddess is used on my new designed medals because she represents speed and success. 

Rio God sculpture 

The letter T was inspired by the statue of Christ  the Redeemer. Brazil still is a very religious country and religion plays a very large role in everyday life.

Further Development - Medal Designs 

Gold medal in development

Silver medal in development

Back and front, bronze in the development stage

The changes: The overall feeling of these designs was a lot better and closer to what I was aiming for in the finished product. The goddess nike will take centre stage on the medals as she comes across as an empowering force, that emphasises success and winning, power and athleticism. These medals I feel embody Rio more than my previous designs due to the fact the Rio font ™, has been used in the text and background, the statue of God is still there and nike.


What I like? the changes made are so much better and it just look more stylish and modern, and it takes the form of Brazil.


What is the colour going to be like?

Gold leaf is thin sheets of metal that has been hammered into extremely delicate sheets by goldbeating and is often used for gilding. Gold leaf is available in a wide variety of karats and shades. The most commonly used gold is 22-karat yellow gold. The silver and bronze will also be gilded. 

Method and material progression meant that the medals have required some rethinking. A gilded medal showed failings in the application of real gold, silver and bronze leaf due to the porous nature of plywood and difficulty pre-sealing the surface and losing fine detail in the process.