‘Utah 2034’ Winter Olympics unveils the icy logo
With 3,000 days to go until the 2034 Winter Olympics, Utah unveiled its new name and transition logo.
The Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, now called the Utah Games, will be held in 2034 after organizers unveiled a new logo and name that reflect the multi-community work that goes into putting on the biggest winter sports event on earth.
State Governor Spencer Cox (Republican) says the new logotype brings people together, though not in a good way.
“It’s really brought people together because everyone seems to not like it,” – Cox said at a recent press conference.
Brad Wilson, CEO of the organizing committee, highlighted the participation of 13 stadiums in five Utah counties, explaining, “Whether you live in Vernal or downtown Salt Lake City, everyone should be a part of Team 2034.” The organization, which is financially supported by the state government, is committed to putting the state’s brand at the forefront.
The new logo is temporary until the final emblem of the Games is released in 2029. It spells out “Utah” in irregularly shaped characters (does that say “IJTAH?”) that are stacked on top of “2034.”
Its launch color palette is just black and white.
Cox called the logo bold. “I’m a little old-fashioned and it’s certainly a bold logo,” he said. The comment section of one local Utah news site included reviews like “beyond terrible,” “a marketing disaster,” and “unreadable.” Some don’t like the name change that leaves out Salt Lake City. “It hurts,” – Salt Lake County Mayor Erin Mendenhall told The Salt Lake Tribune.
This bare-bones logo, though, is just the beginning of what will become an expansive visual brand expressed across venues, apparel, and more. It’s a starting point, not a finish line.
“I think that Olympics are uniquely a moment to do something new and different. And yet, many Olympics have bland and forgettable design,” Doug Thomas, an associate professor at Brigham Young University’s Department of Design and author of Never Use Futura, tells me. “Personally, I like that the Utah 2034 design team are swinging for the fences and trying something new and memorable.”
Utah organizers say the International Olympic Committee, or IOC, allows for “transition logos” to “help the host regions build early awareness and momentum,” but they’re limited to typography only.
The Utah 2034 mark, then, is a chance to introduce shapes through letters and numbers alone, the beginnings of a geometric visual language that could one day be revealed in a full Olympics brand expression.
“The typography is recognizable, it is distinctive, and as such, opens space to create new meaning,” – Thomas says. “The visual forms may not work in every application, but for a transition team logo, this is excellent as a starting point.”
Marketing experts analyze that “Utah 2034” is advantageous in terms of brand strategy because a short and simple name is more memorable. However, it is uncertain how much of a symbolic impact the name Salt Lake will have on the generation that did not experience the 2002 Olympics firsthand.
Meanwhile, Mayor Mendenhall emphasized that he had agreed with the organizing committee to include “Salt Lake City” – in some instances of the new logo, saying, “We have always been and will always be an Olympic city.”.
Organizers say the shapes of the letters in the logo were inspired by Utah’s landscape. It’s most noticeable in the stylized “A” designed to evoke southern Utah’s Delicate Arch.
Other characters were drawn to resemble rivers, mountains, canyons, and petroglyphs, and one can imagine these same angles and shapes showing up in Olympic pictograms that denote sports and venues.
The letterforms are monospaced and laid out on a grid. Inspired by the urban grids that Mormon pioneers laid out in cities across Utah and the American West in the 1800s, it gives the otherwise unusual logo a sense of balance. The logo was designed by a project team led by Molly Mazzolini, cofounder of the Salt Lake City design studio Elevate Creative.
In Utah, where events will take place from Provo to Park City, organizers are choosing the name of the state. By incorporating Utah’s geography into the very letters of the new logo, the designers found a creative way to begin telling Utah’s story with just a few symbols.
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