How a Studio Blackburn rebrand helped the Olympic Museum evolve without discarding its legacy

Located in Lausanne, Switzerland, the official Olympic Museum is host to nearly 100,000 artefacts of the games spanning 2000 years; from the very first dedicated flag, every torch from the Games since 1936 and various outfits from iconic stars. Being such a significant space to the Olympics, the project was a no-brainer for Studio Blackburn, the London-based brand, design and strategy agency who were recently approached to rebrand the iconic institution.

Mark Jones, creative director of Studio Blackburn, tells us that the agency often works with “brands that aim to evolve without discarding their legacy”, and the Olympic Museum project was no different: the team threw themselves into the task of creating something new, but something that would have to “endure” for many years to come. First off, this meant actually experiencing the picturesque Lausanne, and the museum itself. “By immersing ourselves as visitors, we gained insights and a better understanding of what the brand needed to become,” says Mark. Unsurprisingly, the Studio Blackburn team spent a fair amount of time in the wing of the museum dedicated to the branding of the games over the years.

It soon became clear that the project was going to need to be tackled from multiple points. “Everyone has their own interpretation of what the Olympics mean to them; it is such a well-known brand. Capturing the rich history was just one element of the project,” says Mark. “We needed to create something that establishes an emotional connection with a vast audience.” This meant digging to the vast iconography of the games, and the selection of artefacts on show, from medals, athletes, torches, ceremonies and mascots, and seeing how they might find their way into the visuals, through direct photographic inclusion, or isolated and included on posters to enhance their standalone significance.

One key requirement throughout the whole project was that the identity aligned with the official Olympics brand, a series of guidelines which dictates typefaces, graphic devices and illustrations, which you can read about here. “Through the process, we carefully selected a handful of elements while making considered additions,” says Mark. “We needed to find the right balance, ensuring there was enough flexibility between communications without diminishing the museum’s distinctiveness.”

Out of the three typefaces within the guidelines, the studio opted for Olympic Headline, for its “pillar-like quality”, which references Greek architecture (a clever nod to the historic root of the games), and they even adapted the M to look even closer to three pillars standing side by side, a “small addition that creates a massive impact”, says Mark. Another point of deliberation was whether to retain the previous symbol of the museum, and, in the end they decided to, though with some modifications, making it animated, refining the colours and fine-tuning its form and, most significantly, balancing it with typography. Now, the symbol and wordmark can work together, but each part can also work independently, “becoming icons in their own right”, says Mark.