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≡ ”L.A. IN FULL BLOOM” ≡
“If you remember the Games, you remember this visual wrapper. And, think of LA28, we want our Games to feel like a celebration, and every decision that we made reflects back to our city. So it goes beyond decoration … we want to pull from the city to inform every design decision.”
That’s the introduction to the “L.A. in Full Bloom” design concept of the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games organizing committee, explained to reporters in a Monday morning webinar, by Ric Edwards, LA28’s Vice President of Brand and Executive Design Director.
“When we thought about our North Star, we landed on a phenomenon called the ‘Superbloom,’” a fairly rare explosion of wildflowers in color in the Southern California deserts.
Geoff Engelhardt, the LA28 Head of Brand Design, explained that the “Superbloom” concept was engineered to work within the existing infrastructure of the Southern California area:
“We took this wonderful North Star concept and we started to synthesize how the design elements, how the toolkit comes to life. And ultimately, as Ric said, we looked to the city for inspiration.
“And we were inspired by different thematics and stories that really make this city great. And what we were able to do was develop 13 blooms, which are representative of 13 stories and 13 thematics.”
Seven of these were named, including “World Stage,” “Desert Vegetation,” “The Flame,” “Hollywood” as in the sign, “The Light,” “Culinary Crossroads,” and “First People.” The shapes across the 13 bands of the “Bloom” are explained as “an emotive representation of a concrete or abstract fixture directly derived from the individual bloom”:
Engelhardt said that the 13 individual “blooms” were woven together to develop a 12-row linear grid, the Superbloom, which was then – uniquely – tied together in a loop to make it infinitely expandable both horizontally and vertically.
The color palette will be used to “re-imagine” the look and feel of the competition venues to make them seem and feel new to visitors in 2028, even for facilities like the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, now more than 100 years old (a concept for an indoor diving facility is shown below).
The design system has been described and regulated in a 250-page document which will guide other users in actually applying it to sites, but also signage, uniforms, souvenirs and all kinds of other items involved with the 2028 Games.
Asked about their references to the past, it was noted that discussions were had with designers involved with the Olympic Games in Athens (2004), London (2012), Rio de Janeiro (2016) and Paris (2024), but no one who worked on the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, famous for the “Festive Federalism” design program. Edwards said the design team, however, consciously decided to “lean into the legacy” of the ‘84 Games, notably in the color palette.
As for the dozens of LA28 logos with the changing “A,” these will all be available for use as part of the program, especially with the availability of digital signage in so many of the Games venues, allowing for multiple marks to work with the multiple elements of the Superbloom program.
A small “Superbloom” collection of merchandise has been introduced, including shirts, hoodies, caps and a pin, from $14 to $120.
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