Pitching my Idea

Anime poster series

The idea I have chosen to take forward, informed by feedback, is to produce a series of posters for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic games. These posters will include the popular anime culture that Japan is known so well for. The idea to use this was informed by an article I found that stated the branding may include anime characters such as Goku from a popular anime series as an ambassador for the games. This decision was made in order to appeal to a younger target audience.

Anime culture is not only popular with children, but people of all ages in Japan enjoy it and it is even used regularly in advertising and branding.

Idea 01

The first idea was to use popular Japanese anime characters within a series of poster designs. The characters would be performing various olympic sports.

However, a weakness to this response is that it would be extremely difficult to either find anime characters that I can manipulate or to draw the characters in the desired positions.

Another weakness is that the characters would not be widely recognised around the world. Olympic branding is designed for a global audience and so these posters need to appeal to as many different people and cultures as possible.

Idea 02

Developing on from idea 01, with the help of a group of peers, I came up with an alternative approach that would have a similar effect. The second idea is to use high resolution pictures of world famous olympic athletes, such as Mo Farah and Usain Bolt, and add anime style details to the images. The result would be a series of posters that glorified the athletes and make them look like heroes and heroins. These posters would appeal strongly to a young target audience as they would look up to the athletes in admiration and thus promoting more kids to get involved with sports. 

As well as appealing to the population of Japan, it would also appeal to the younger generations all over the world, making it a suitable campaign for the Olympics.

This campaign would not be the main identity of the games, it would simply be a side project aimed at the young population around the world. If it were the main branding, I think it wouldn't work as well for older generations all over the world and might look a bit childish.

Practical Investigation Development

Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games Rebrand

For my practical investigation I have decided to rebrand the Tokyo 2020 Olympic games informed by my research into branding and identity of the modern games throughout my essay. 

My essay focused primarily on the importance along with the appropriateness of the branding for each of the games held from 1896 through to the late 1900s. I will be focusing on producing a rebrand informed by the most successful examples olympic branding in recent history. These examples will help me to produce a campaign that builds on the existing one and that portrays the right message that would be well received by its large audience.

The target audience is something that heavily informs every project I have come across so far and so this is something I intend to start with. After speaking with a tutor, the general opinion was that as the olympics is aimed at the world as a whole, it provides a daunting task for the designer. To tackle this, I will be choosing a sub category to aim my campaign at. 

Through research into the existing branding and identity of the 2020 games, I found out that the committee decided on using well known anime characters to brand the games. This is because Japan famously has a large anime pop culture that is enjoyed by all ages around the country and is something the nation has been recognised for for years. Their other justification is that they aim to attract the younger generations to inspire them to get involved. This research has informed my decision to focus my own campaign at the younger demographics of both Japan and from around the world. 

I thought that I would do some research into the existing branding as I plan on building on it, as opposed to starting from scratch.

Winning Logo Design

- chequered pattern been popular around the world

- in Japan, chequered pattern became known as ""ichimatsu moyo" in the Edo period (1603-1867)

- the indigo blue colour expresses a refined elegance and sophistication that exemplifies Japan

- Designer - Asao Tokolo

- "three different triangular shapes represent diversity"