Over the years of the modern Olympic era we have witnessed design take a forefront in the planning and execution of the event. It has seemingly gone from a casual, low key sporting event, with each venue taking their turn hosting, into a full scale media orgy of Superbowl proportions.

Cities have good reason to want to hold one of the the world’s greatest sporting events, with the potential economy boost, infrastructure developments and revitalized international attention, but for many cities hosting the Olympic games has been not always been a great success — in 1984 Los Angeles was the only city to make a bid for the games due to the massive cost overruns during the Montreal Games.

With the enormous costs that cities face to hold the games, more energy, and money, is being focused on branding in hopes at creating a memorable and rewarding event. Host countries now reach out to the best designers, architects, and artist, to create a spectacle the world will never forget, and the one symbol that will be plastered on the streets, merchandise, and computer and television screens across the globe: the logo. And while most designs have stuck close to the blue, yellow, black, green and red of the Olympic colors, we have begun to see new colors emerge from the more recent games, including the first logo to come in multiple colors, which will be seen in 2012.

Today were taking look at the Summer Olympic logos from 1896 to 2012 London along with some noteworthy facts from each games and palette inspiration from some of the more colorful posters and logos. For more info about each year of the Olympics, click on the corresponding image.

Olympic Design

The 1896 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the I Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in Athens, Greece, from April 6 to April 15, 1896. It was the first Olympic Games held in the Modern era. Ancient Greece was the birthplace of the Olympic Games, consequently Athens was perceived to be an appropriate choice to stage the inaugural modern Games. It was unanimously chosen as the host city during a congress organized by Pierre de Coubertin, a French pedagogue and historian, in Paris, on June 23, 1894. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) was also established during this congress.

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Our good friends over at envato are organizing the second annual Blog Action Day. Last year’s topic of the environment reached millions of readers through more than 20,000 blogs… We’re hoping this year’s topic of poverty will reach even more. The idea is simple. Organize as many people on a single day to focus on one topic… be the change we wish to see in the world.

The actual Blog Action Day isn’t until October 15th, but we wanted to let you know about it now so you had as much time as possible to support and spread the word.

One Issue, Thousands of Voices

Global issues like poverty are extremely complex. There is no simple, clear answer. By asking thousands of different people to give their viewpoints and opinions, Blog Action Day creates an extraordinary lens through which to view these issues. Each blogger brings their own perspective and ideas. Each blogger posts relating to their own blog topic. And each blogger engages their audience differently.

How Does It Work?

From August 15th to October 15th bloggers are asked to register to participate so we can track how many are involved, as well as their approximate audience size.

On October 15th the bloggers post on the issue and/or donate their day’s ad revenue to a charity involved in that area. We ask bloggers to try to keep their posting related to their regular blog topic so that posts are individual, suited to the audience and look at the issue in many different lights.

Learn more and register your blog at www.BlogActionDay.org

The tradition of quilting has been a part of many cultures. Thought to have originated in China and Egypt simultaneously, the first record of a quilted garment dates back to 3400BC. Quilts have been highly sought after not only for their warmth and functionality, but their artistic quality and color compositions as well.

Photo by ramson

The History of Quilts

Quilting (stitching together layers of padding and fabric) is as old as ancient Egypt if not older and wholecloth quilts were very common trade goods in wealthy circles in Europe and Asia going back as far as the 15th century.

Piecing fabric together is also very old. It was more often used for clothing but also occasionally for decorative objects like this exquisite pieced pillow from the 15th century.

Photo by hey skinny

The making of pieced quilts made up of cut pieces of fabric sewn in block form with the blocks then sewn together to make the quilt is a more recent development. Pieced block quilts, often called patchwork quilt, did not become the dominant form of quilt making until the mid-19th century, and still is not the traditional form in Provence, Wales, and parts of India.

Photo by shelley_ginger

Quilt making was uncommon in America in the late eighteenth century and early years of the nineteenth. Most women were busy spinning, weaving and sewing in order to clothe their family. Commercial blankets or woven coverlets were a more economical bedcovering for most people. Only the wealthy had the leisure time for quilt making so Colonial Quilting was done by only a few.

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The bikini has been raising blood pressures and making people blush since its modern creation in 1946. It has gone through a few changes over the years in style; different patterns, plummeting waist lines, disappearing amounts of fabric and fluorescent fishing lure-like colors, but like most things in fashion, things tend to come full circle, and designers look for something new by looking at something old for inspiration.

To celebrate these liberating two pieces of fabric, and as a reminder of the fleeting summer days, we’re taking a look at the colorful history of the bikini, Styles from then and now, and the most famous (or infamous) bikinis known in pop culture.

The Most Famous Bikinis of All Time

Brigitte Bardot Credited with creating the bikini market in the US with her provocative role in the 1950’s film ‘And God Created Woman.’

Ursula Andress The most famous bikini scene in the history of cinema, from the 1962 James Bond Classic ‘Dr. No.’ In the scene Andress ermerges from the water wearing an off-white bikini.

S.I. Swimsuit Issue The first issue was published in 1964 and is credited with legitimizing the bikini. The popularity of the annual magazine, which features supermodels in bikinis in exotic locals, has grown steadily since its first release, peaking in 1989 with the 25th anniversary issue with Kathy Ireland. In 2005 the single issue carried $35 million in advertising.

Raquel Welch “Discover a savage world where the only law is lust!” In One Million Years BC (1966), a strange caveman adventure film, Welch is seen wearing a torn, fur-lined brown leather bikini.

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Polyvore is a member based web application that allows its users to sort through uploaded images or those grabbed from around the web, to create collages for inspiration and to share with others.

The site’s main focus is fashion, but also includes interiors and whatever else people can come up with. Filter through the images by garment or accessory type, brand and color. With the color sorter it would seemingly make it very easy to put together the perfect outfit palette, making it a useful tool for any color lover.

Polyvore was founded by ex-Yahoo executive Pasha Sadri. While branded as fun creative collage site that makes use of the infinite amounts of content available on the web, Polyvore also allows its users to shop the products that they use in their collages. Click on any item, and a product description will appear along with the original link where the item can be found.

The direct engagement of real products and brands with its users is some what of a dream for marketers, as the model is basically user-generated advertising.


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Not that we didn’t expect it but hypercolor is making its comeback into the fashion mainstream. Thanks to the uber-hipster flagship of American Apparel leading the way along with a few smaller designers. Though I don’t know who exactly it was that first started this whole thing over again, regardless, once again it will be obvious how hot you really are. For people who like to highlight their body areas that give off the most heat, hypercolors will create the perfect little two color palette of heat exhaustion.

History of Hypercolor

Hypercolor was originally popular in the U.S. in the 80’s and early 90’s. The ’secret’ is thermochromic pigment in the dye that was originally manufactured by Matsui Shikiso Chemical in Japan. Being temperature sensitive, hypercolor shirts were always getting messed up by those of us who forgot to wash it in cold water or just couldn’t bear to wear it wrinkled and would decide to straighten the fabric out with a little ironing, only to find out that the shirt now included a suspect iron shape design.

New Hypercolor

The companies who are bringing hypercolor back are American Apparel and the boutique fashion duo Anzevino & Florence, plus Puma with their chameleon shoe.

American Apparel’s offering includes four colors (Hyper Vermillion, Hyper Fast-Blue, Hyper Fast-Black, Hyper Green) in unisex t-shirts, that change from color to white.


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I came across a lovely little ‘Atari Game Manuals‘ flickr set from Joe Kral the other day and thought it would be a perfect addition to the wonderful collection of nostalgia inducing color palettes.

While technology may have limited the color palettes of some of the first, and most popular, video games, their colors are no less influential on modern game design and culture as a whole, and an important part to any design is its packaging. The game manual art on many Atari games may have been a bit exaggerated and deceiving leaving the gamer wishing the game looked more like the picture on the box, but are nonetheless full of classic color palettes.

Another sports title from Activision, Boxing presents a top-down view of a boxing arena, pitting you one-on-one against another boxer. You have two minutes to either score 100 points and win the fight or finish with the highest score at the end of the round. Your goal is to target your opponent’s nose with either a left or right jab, and a successful hit causes your opponent’s face to reel back. You can choose to fight against a computer opponent for a single player game or against a friend for a two player bout. This is old school boxing with no white towel and no referee, so keep your guard up and your wits about you and never give up!

Galaxian expanded on the formula pioneered by Space Invaders. As in the earlier game, Galaxian featured a horde of attacking aliens that exchanged shots with the player. In contrast to Space Invaders, however, Galaxian added an element of drama by having the aliens periodically make kamikaze-like dives at the player’s ship. The gameplay was relatively simple. Swarm after swarm of alien armies attacked the player’s ship that moved left and right at the bottom of the screen. The ship could only fire sparingly by default, but rearmed instantly when an enemy was hit.

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When tourists visit Japan, one of the moments that they are usually hoping to capture in a photograph is a geisha in her full kimono. Although most people associate kimono with these beautiful cultural icons, the garment is in fact the national costume of Japan and worn in various incarnations by most of its residents. The origin of the word kimono actually comes from Ki (wearing) and Mono (thing), directly translating to “thing to wear”. The T-shaped garment has an illustrious past, dating all the way back to the fifth century.

The earliest kimonos were actually directly influenced by traditional clothing of China. The garment actually has another name, “ganfuka”, which translates directly to “clothes of Wu”. It wasn’t until the 8th century that kimono truly came into style, however, and the overlapping collar because a predominant part of the fashion.

Photo by roger jones

During Japan’s Heian period (794-1192), kimono became increasingly stylized and elaborate, sometimes incorporating as many as ten layers of robes in varying colors beneath the top layer. Women also grew their hair to incredible lengths which complemented the long lines of the robes, resulting in one of the most striking and memorable presentations of the kimono over the years.


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I came across this wonderfully interesting Flickr set the other day. A selection of 49 hand-colored photos of Meiji-era MAIKO and GEISHA in swimsuit fashions of the time. The photos are from a collection of 150 from the Flickr user Okinawa Soba. Obviously, it was the colors that first grabbed my attention, but the discovery led me to look a little more into the history of hand-colored photos.

The popularity of hand-colored photos peaked in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s but fell from their standing due to the development of color film. They were especially popular in Japan.

Hand-Coloring

Hand-colouring refers to any of a number of methods of manually adding colour to a black-and-white photograph or other image to heighten its realism. Typically, water-colours, oils and other paints or dyes are applied to the image surface using brushes, fingers, cotton swabs or airbrushes. Some photographic genres, particularly landscapes and portraits, have been more often hand-coloured than others, and hand-coloured photographs have been popular enough that some firms specialised in producing them.

Photo from Okinawa Soba

Until the middle of the 20th century, nearly all photography was monochrome – essentially black-and-white, as exemplified by the gelatin silver print. Some photographic processes inherently produced images with an overall colour as, for example, the blue of cyanotypes, and photographic processes were altered by various techniques to produce variations in tone

Swiss painter and printmaker Johann Baptist Isenring used a mixture of gum arabic and pigments to make the first coloured daguerreotype in 1840 or 1841. The coloured powder was fixed on the delicate surface of the daguerreotype by the application of heat. Variations of this technique were patented in England by Richard Beard in 1842 and in France by Étienne Lecchi in 1842 and Léotard de Leuze in 1845. Later, hand-colouring was used with successive photographic innovations, from albumen and gelatin silver prints to lantern slides and transparency photography.

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In 1935 we were introduced to Porky Pig, he was just the first in the long history of classic characters from the Warner Brothers’ Looney Tunes series.

Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies were essentially the same series. They both used the same reoccurring characters from the Warner Brothers’ collection, and only the theme music and title frames differentiated the two. However, Merry Melodies was the first one to be produced in color, and it wasn’t until 1943 that color was added to Looney Tunes.

In 1967 Warner Brothers had all the original black-and-white Looney Tunes sent out to Korea to be retraced with color frame by frame. Later, in the 1990’s the cartoons were re-released, this time using digital coloring methods.

Though much controversy surrounds Looney Tunes, because of racial stereotypes from the WWII era, the colors and characters will always live fondly in our hearts because of their part in the creative history of American animation.

Classic Looney Tunes Characters

“Go-go-go-go-go-go-good mo-mo-mo-mo-[gets honked at by a car behind him] ALL RIGHT, ALL RIGHT!! Hello.”    The character was designed by animator Bob Clampett and introduced in the short I Haven’t Got a Hat (first released on March 2, 1935), directed by Friz Freleng. Studio head Leon Schlesinger suggested that Freleng do a cartoon version of the popular Our Gang films. Porky only has a minor role in the film, but the fat little stuttering pig quickly became popular. Porky’s name came from two brothers who were childhood classmates of Freleng’s, nicknamed “Porky” and “Piggy”.

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