Cairo, Egypt Olympics Logo Corp. ID

Logo Design

Research

Cairo (Capital City), Egypt “The city of a thousand minarets”

Arabic: Al-Qahirah “The Victorious”

Founded: 969AD by Fatimid Dynasty

Elevation: 23 m

Population: 9,908,788 city : 21,323,000 metro : largest metropolitan area in Africa.

UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979

• Oldest and Largest film and music industries in the Arabic world
• Second oldest institution of higher learning in the Arabic world
• Suffers from high levels of pollution and traffic
• 15th busiest metro in the world, ranked first economy in the Middle East
• Has stood for more than 1000 years along the banks of the Nile River
• 8 month of summer and 4 months of winter: 70–95 Summer
• Use to be religiously diverse, now primarily Muslim, with some Coptic Orthodox Christians

Flag of Egypt

Flag of Cairo

Moodboards

Wildlife

MindMapping

Logo

• Play with contrast, ancient vs. modern, desert vs. oasis, colorful vs. dull
• Cairo is fan-shaped
• Try mosque/Muslim art patterns and hieroglyphic patterns
• How can I incorporate relevant local wildlife?

In 20 years, I think design will include more detailed and “authentic” attributes. While minimalism and vectors are in now, I think people are growing to have more appreciation for hand-made and intricate art and design again because of how much we are being inundated with clean, perfect, computer generated imagery.

Logo Sketches 3/01/21

Logo Update 3/3/21

Sans-serif font exploration

Mosque Patterns with gradient

Font cropping exploration

3 B&W logos

Gradient Trial

Logo Update 3/8/21

Logo Update 3/10/21

B&W

Color Trials

With and without ornamented borders

Color Detail

Without Border

With Border

Logo with Text Variations

Final Logo 3/15/21

Full Color

B&W Greyscale

B&W

Rationale

When I was given the city of Cairo, Egypt for this project, I instantly thought of deserts, pyramids, mythology, and camels. Because of this, I wanted to design a logo that stayed away from that stereotypical imagery as much as possible. While completing my initial research, I found myself being drawn towards the ornamented bazaars and the highly detailed patterns of the mosques. I knew that I wanted to try to find a way to incorporate these aspects of Cairo into the final logo design. I especially liked the mosque patterns because they were originally designed with the purpose of not representing animate objects or beings, and I thought this could work well for something as global and diverse as the olympics. I started my logo design process by creating a variety of mosque patterns into the text “CAIRO”. I quickly noticed that a packaged font did not give me enough real estate for my pattern so I created a blocked font for my pattern to overlay. The most challenging part of this project came next, where I tried to simplify my very detailed and intricate source inspiration into a working logo design. I ended up doing extra research on mosque patterns and decided that I would zoom into these intricate designs and pick one aspect of different patterns for each letter. I also thought that by using five different patterns, like the five olympic rings, it could emphasize the variety of the olympic sports. Another challenge with this design was trying to figure out the right balance with pattern in the letterform. This is when I was inspired to try the framing techniques of the architecture in Cairo to frame my patterns. I chose a gold/brassy color to imitate the lanterns and artifacts in the bazaars, I carried this through the design for awhile until I decided that it was too much for a logo on top of the gradient. I decided that it was more important to keep the gradient because I wanted to represent the depth that these patterns portray in their real form. I also thought that the depth added to the idea of the patterned lanterns in the bazaar. I chose the oranges and blue greens for my final colored version because those colors were prevalent in the Cairo bazaars and they gave a “warm” feel to the logo for the summer olympics. I think the final design improved a lot from where I started, but I feel like it is still evident that I struggled with the balance of an ornamented logo design and how to implement these patterns.

As for designing a logo for 2050

Another reason for choosing a more detailed design was that I inferred that there would be a new emergence for detailed logos/designs again by 2050. I personally feel that in 2021, society as a whole is starting to get slightly over minimalism in design. As a result, I feel like there will be a growing trend in the future for the appreciation of handmade or more detailed designs.