Sapporo '72 Logo

Kazumasa Nagai's 1966 symbol for the Sapporo Winter Olympic Games, 1972.

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Japan was asked to host the Sapporo Winter Olympic Games in 1972 due in large part to the high international praise that the Tokyo Olympic Games received, of which it’s breakthrough visual identity had played a significant role in impressing local and international visitors.

In order to deliver an equally impressive Winter Olympics, nine dedicated committees were set-up within the Organizing Committee. The Design Committee, a ten-member panel chaired by Masaru Katzumie, which would deliberate and shape the policy for all design-related activities, was established in 1966 and got quickly to work on sourcing concepts and deciding on a symbol.

Continue scrolling to see some of the concepts submitted. Understand the relationship between the symbol of Tokyo ‘64 and Sapporo ‘72. And learn about the considerations that shaped the final design and colour palette.

Within the design plan for Tokyo ‘64 two key aspects were considered the most successful. Firstly, the official symbol was consistently applied throughout, and avoided the over-decoration which had occurred in other types of international events. And secondly, that a cohesive system of event and facility symbols had effectively answered the question of how to guide and inform foreign visitors around the Olympic site. Sticking to these two basic principles for the Sapporo Winter Olympics was seen as critical to its success.

The Sapporo ‘72 symbol was sourced through a closed competition, initiated by the committee shortly after its formation in 1966, with submissions being received from eight designers; Kazumasa Nagai, Yusaku Kamekura (designer of the Tokyo ‘64 symbol) Hiromu Hara, Kenichi Kuriyagawa, Ikko Tanaka, Mokoto Wada Gan Hosoya and Masayoshi Nakajo.

Over 30 submissions were received and offered variations on some key visual motifs. These included the rising sun, snowflakes and mountain trees. A Sika Deer, the outline of the geographical boundaries of Sapporo and a Red-crowned Crane were outliers.

The winning design, submitted by Kazumasa Nagai, was a variation on the Tokyo ‘64 logo. However, Nagai moved this forward by employing a flexible modular interpretation that allowed for a number of different configurations of the sun, snow crystal, Olympic Rings and Sapporo ‘72 logotype.

While the consistent application of the Tokyo ‘64 logo was well-received in design circles and by experts, the newspapers at the time had labelled it monotonous. Nagai’s version, with its variations, addressed this issue, avoiding monotony that came from uniformity, whilst also widening the application scope of the symbol to better accommodate horizontal contexts.

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For the event pictograms, the same designer of the Tokyo Olympics, Yoshiro Yamashita, was hired, and a uniformity of style was sought out. These varied in style due to the difference in games, and were less dependant on negative space.

In the case of the facility pictograms, the system used in the Tokyo Olympics, which was then improved and used for Expo 70, was again revised and deployed throughout the Olympic grounds in 1972. Having been tested on the international stage multiple times, it was felt that those would be readily be accepted on a further occasion.

The colour policy, which was devised by Ayogi Mieko, took into consideration the concern that the choice and application of colour in the Tokyo Olympics hadn’t been considered a complete success, and was described as overly ambitious as a multitude of colours were used to help define areas within the grounds. With this in mind, Mieko moved to restrict the number of colours used, reducing confusion, and more clearly delineating between more important aspects of the Games. He also introduced metallic gold and silver as featured colours, and applied them on a ‘priority basis’.

Another change between Tokyo ‘64 and Sapporo ‘72 was the typeface, with Helvetica making way for Adrian Fruitger’s Univers. This was notable for its comprehensive range of weights and widths, which provided more range, just as the logo’s modularity addressed issues of monotony in 1964.

Reflecting later on the work, Design Committee chairman Katzumie Masaru suggested that the success of the design policy for the Sapporo Winter Olympic Games was in its un-pretentiousness and almost commonplace nature, and that by avoiding experiments in avant-gardism and employing proven and familiar design techniques had obtained positive results.

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