Olympic ad

I found this ad today after jumping from one blog to another. It is the first of four such ads that TWBAChina and Stink created for Adidas and the 2008 Olympic Games. You can find here and here two slightly different versions of the same concept which heavily emphasizes the support of the great/ numerous Chinese people. Interesting!  

story

Every emblem of the Olympics tells a story. For example, the one of the Beijing Olympics represents Beijing’s hospitality and hopes. It is also said that in its dancing (for the emblem is called “Chinese Seal, Dancing Beijing) carries the city’s commitment to the world.

Creating an emblem that should satisfy all, and if not the greater majority, is a hard task… because there are, in effect, more majorities to please: the people of the host country, the IOC, the politicians, the cultural representatives, the opinion leaders, pundits, corporate sponsors, media, academia and so on. More than that, the emblem needs to be a concentrated symbol of a nation, of a region and also of a concept for equality, peace and performance. Therefore, to tell such a story and concentrate in a few images and even less words is, as I said, a hard task. Yet, as hard as it seems as the cities that hosted the Olympics managed to come up with an emblem that not only told their story but also the one of the Olympic ideals, goals and hopes.

Every emblem tells a story but nobody yet, not as far as I know, told the story of all the emblems, of how they were created, what they represent, how and why they were chosen. I wonder where the other sketches, the non-winning ones are so that I could tell the story of all the Olympic emblems.