Olympic Design Historian Mr. Markus Osterwalder to Deliver Online Lecture Commemorating “Olympic Language: Exploring the Look of the Games”

Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (DNP), along with the Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage and the DNP Foundation for Cultural Promotion, will co-host an exhibition entitled “Olympic Language: Exploring the Look of the Games” from 20 July to 28 August 2021, broadly coinciding with the period of Tokyo 2020. The exhibition will take place at Ginza Graphic Gallery (ggg) in Tokyo’s Ginza district.
As a related program, Mr. Markus Osterwalder, the Olympic design historian will present a commemorative online lecture on Friday, 6 August 2021 in which he will trace the development of Olympic design while introducing numerous images and other relevant materials.

[Summary]

• Time and Date: Friday, 6 August 2021, 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM (JST)
• Lecturer: Mr. Markus Osterwalder, Olympic design historian
• Access: Virtual access via Microsoft Teams Live Events
• Available languages: Japanese and German. The address will be presented with Japanese subtitles. A Q&A session will be conducted using interpreters.
• Applications: Please apply in advance through the ggg website at https://www.dnpfcp.jp/CGI/gallery/schedule/detail.cgi?l=2&t=1&seq=00000778. Access to the address will be free of charge.
• Organizer: The DNP Foundation for Cultural Promotion

[Content]

Mr. Markus Osterwalder is a full-time graphic designer who has spent many years studying the history of Olympic design. In 2020 his major work “Olympic Games – The Design” was published. In 2018, the author was also involved in the planning of “Olympic Language: Exploring the Look of the Games,” which served as the basis for the special travelling exhibition at ggg. Mr. Osterwalder’s lecture will consist of a series of slides, including images and other materials from his private collection, that trace the history of Olympic design.

Background Information

Originally staged at The Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, from 10 May 2018 to 17 March 2019, the exhibition entitled “Olympic Language: Exploring the Look of the Games” visits Tokyo to coincide with Tokyo 2020, as its first special travelling exhibition overseas.
The exhibition is part of the Tokyo 2020 Nationwide Participation Programme operated by the Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Olympic emblems, pictograms, torches and medals are part of a visual identity (VI), or “Look of the Games,” specially designed for each Olympic Games to reflect the culture, spirit and history of host city and country. This exhibition focuses on five Games that were particularly noteworthy for their design features: Tokyo 1964, Mexico City 1968, Munich 1972, Lillehammer 1994, and Athens 2004. Their “Look” provides a sense of coherence, presenting the audience with one common identity of the Games through official Olympic properties such as the emblems, posters, pictograms, mascots and much more.