mr.x
Aug 11, 2008, 7:55 PM
http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/4583/72143667qo9.png
http://www.vancouver2010.com/resources/html/enews/Torch/images/footer.gif
http://www.boardoftrade.com/images/2010banners-320w.jpg
http://www.vancouver2010.com/images/screensavers/Wallpapers/vancouver2010_wall_1_s.jpg
Designs on the Games: Vanoc's mission to brand Vancouver in 2010
Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun
Published: Sunday, August 10, 2008
Among the things Steve Lange first noticed when he arrived in Beijing last week were the massive sky-scraping banners that adorned office and apartment towers, shouting out huge Olympic messages.
Another thing he noticed was the lack of miles and miles of colourful snow fencing, the kind organizers of the 2006 Turin Winter Games used to hide construction sites and long lines of temporary fencing.
As the director of "Look of the Games" for the Vancouver Organizing Committee, Lange's job here is to see how the Beijing Organizing Committee has branded its venues - and to apply what he learns to Vancouver's Games.
The lack of fabric-covered fencing surprised him.
"(Beijing) made a design decision here not to dress a lot of the temporary fences, and from what I hear there was a security issue to keep sightlines open," he said.
That's not what he's got in mind for Vancouver.
"We're planning fence fabric for our venues. It's an important part of the Winter Games because it adds colour to a bleak or sometimes snow-filled environment."
Lange has spent the last two Olympic Games studying how organizing committees brand their venues.
In Turin, he watched as the city was dressed horizontally with images reminiscent of piazzas and arches.
In Beijing, where there's a Chinese motif worked around the theme "One World, One Dream", dressings are vertical, taking advantage of the massive skyscrapers that dot the city.
Lange isn't saying what is in store for Vancouver, but Vanoc has developed a series of colour palettes inspired by forests, oceans and mountains.
"I am looking at the overall look to see how (Beijing) delivered the branding and colour strategy, but I am also looking at what technologies and methodologies they've used."
For example, he said, hanging a 30-storey banner on a building requires special material that can't blow away and become a danger if it falls.
And it's not just the outside of buildings that are important. Everything from subway walls to the thousands of guidebooks to the insides of the venues themselves are marked with the Olympic colour scheme.
At the Main Press Centre, Beijing's organizers appear to have gone overboard in their branding, covering even transformer boxes with Olympic livery, and placing cartoon pictures of the Fuwa mascots on electrical panel access doors.
The placement of the schemes and logos inside the venues is particularly important, Lange said.
Last week he watched as the Beijing committee tested camera angles on fields of play to make sure they had the right balance of International Olympic Committee and Bocog logos, and that there were good camera angles for the athletes. Most of the times the professional advisors get the placements right.
But sometimes they don't.
Lange said officials scrapped the dressings and logos on the lower barrier surrounding the field of play in the gymnastics venue when camera positions were changed at the last minute. They had to reapply the official logos and rebalance the lighting.
Another factor affecting the look of an Olympic city is how billboards are used, he said.
The International Olympic Committee insists that the organizing committee buy out or control the space of billboards along major Olympic routes to limit the amount of "ambush" advertising by competitors of Olympic sponsors.
Lange said Beijing has an abundance of billboards that Bocog had to control.
"The billboard program they have here is probably a lot larger than you will see here," he said.
In Vancouver's case, Vanoc has acquired all of the rights to major sources of outdoor advertising, from billboards to bus shelters throughout the area.
http://www.vancouver2010.com/resources/html/enews/Torch/images/footer.gif
http://www.boardoftrade.com/images/2010banners-320w.jpg
http://www.vancouver2010.com/images/screensavers/Wallpapers/vancouver2010_wall_1_s.jpg
Designs on the Games: Vanoc's mission to brand Vancouver in 2010
Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun
Published: Sunday, August 10, 2008
Among the things Steve Lange first noticed when he arrived in Beijing last week were the massive sky-scraping banners that adorned office and apartment towers, shouting out huge Olympic messages.
Another thing he noticed was the lack of miles and miles of colourful snow fencing, the kind organizers of the 2006 Turin Winter Games used to hide construction sites and long lines of temporary fencing.
As the director of "Look of the Games" for the Vancouver Organizing Committee, Lange's job here is to see how the Beijing Organizing Committee has branded its venues - and to apply what he learns to Vancouver's Games.
The lack of fabric-covered fencing surprised him.
"(Beijing) made a design decision here not to dress a lot of the temporary fences, and from what I hear there was a security issue to keep sightlines open," he said.
That's not what he's got in mind for Vancouver.
"We're planning fence fabric for our venues. It's an important part of the Winter Games because it adds colour to a bleak or sometimes snow-filled environment."
Lange has spent the last two Olympic Games studying how organizing committees brand their venues.
In Turin, he watched as the city was dressed horizontally with images reminiscent of piazzas and arches.
In Beijing, where there's a Chinese motif worked around the theme "One World, One Dream", dressings are vertical, taking advantage of the massive skyscrapers that dot the city.
Lange isn't saying what is in store for Vancouver, but Vanoc has developed a series of colour palettes inspired by forests, oceans and mountains.
"I am looking at the overall look to see how (Beijing) delivered the branding and colour strategy, but I am also looking at what technologies and methodologies they've used."
For example, he said, hanging a 30-storey banner on a building requires special material that can't blow away and become a danger if it falls.
And it's not just the outside of buildings that are important. Everything from subway walls to the thousands of guidebooks to the insides of the venues themselves are marked with the Olympic colour scheme.
At the Main Press Centre, Beijing's organizers appear to have gone overboard in their branding, covering even transformer boxes with Olympic livery, and placing cartoon pictures of the Fuwa mascots on electrical panel access doors.
The placement of the schemes and logos inside the venues is particularly important, Lange said.
Last week he watched as the Beijing committee tested camera angles on fields of play to make sure they had the right balance of International Olympic Committee and Bocog logos, and that there were good camera angles for the athletes. Most of the times the professional advisors get the placements right.
But sometimes they don't.
Lange said officials scrapped the dressings and logos on the lower barrier surrounding the field of play in the gymnastics venue when camera positions were changed at the last minute. They had to reapply the official logos and rebalance the lighting.
Another factor affecting the look of an Olympic city is how billboards are used, he said.
The International Olympic Committee insists that the organizing committee buy out or control the space of billboards along major Olympic routes to limit the amount of "ambush" advertising by competitors of Olympic sponsors.
Lange said Beijing has an abundance of billboards that Bocog had to control.
"The billboard program they have here is probably a lot larger than you will see here," he said.
In Vancouver's case, Vanoc has acquired all of the rights to major sources of outdoor advertising, from billboards to bus shelters throughout the area.