The official posters for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, were unveiled on Monday at the Musée d’Orsay — a former railway station transformed into an imposing museum stretching along the Seine River.
The respective posters for both the Olympic and Paralympic Games, complement each other to form a double poster and were unveiled by Paris 2024 director of design Joachim Roncin and the artist behind them, Ugo Gattoni.
"I want it to be something very happy, because it’s going to a huge party. I want it to be very joyful. Hopefully people will be inspired by these posters."
"It’s the art deco style," Roncin said. "I wanted something very flamboyant, very rich, very colorful. It’s typical of Paris, when you look at various restaurant styles, you can see the art deco style. When you look at the entrance on the subways, you can see the art nouveau style."
No coincidence that it has this feel, perhaps, since these Games mark the centenary of the 1924 Olympics in Paris.
Everywhere you look, even amid a blur of colors, the details are intricate and precise.
In the background you can see the Olympic flame arriving on a three-mast tall ship into the French port of Marseille, having sailed from Greece, and the high-rolling waves representing surfing events in Tahiti.
Une image vaut mille mots, voici les 2 affiches officielles de nos Jeux : une Olympique et une Paralympique.
— Paris 2024 (@Paris2024) March 4, 2024
Ensemble, elles forment une seule et même grande histoire, celle de #Paris2024 🖼️ pic.twitter.com/7oxay5uSz2
No artificial intelligence used
Most of Paris' iconic monuments appear like the Eiffel Tower and the Stade de France which will be used during the Games.
Les Invalides, which holds former French emperor Napoléon Bonaparte's tomb; the imperious Grand Palais; the Arc de Triomphe, and the Château de Versailles, whose resplendent gardens will host equestrian and pentathlon events.
Roncin said 15,000 to 30,000 posters for the Games will go on sale, and will also appear on billboards all over Paris from Tuesday.
It will be a relief to purists that no AI (artificial intelligence) was used to design the posters, which is part of the reason why Roncin selected Gattoni.
"It was very important to work with Ugo because he’s a manual artist, he works with his hands. Nothing is digital assisted. Today we live in the world where there is a lot of AI," Roncin said. "I wanted to bring this savoir-faire à la française (French know-how); to do these hand-drawn posters and colors as well, with the hand."
It took six months to decide which colors to use and Gattoni has spent more than 2,000 hours working on the posters.
"It has this fresh feel ... an atmosphere of good vibes," said Gattoni, whose work also included studying all the previous Olympic posters.
"Just like the 1924 poster, this poster has to work in 100 years' time. For me this is super important."
History of posters
The first official Olympics poster appeared for the 1912 Games in Stockholm and was chosen through an artistic competition. Since then posters have been the responsibility of organisers in the host city.
In the first half of the 20th century, a limited number of posters were designed and used for communication and promotional purposes in a pre-radio and pre-television era, giving the general public necessary practical information.
In the second half of the century, the number of posters produced increased.
They reflected the artistic, political and social context of their era as the Olympics also branched out of Europe and North America toward Oceania, Asia and Central America.
According to the Olympic Studies Center, at this point "they play a double role: In addition to announcing the Games, they provide a foretaste of their visual identity."
The Paris Olympic Games run from 26 July - 11 August and then the Paralympics from 28 August - 8 September 2024.
(with newswires)
