Who Designed The Olympic Rings Logo
The Olympic games are considered to be one of the premiere sporting events in the world and the competition is held every 4 years. The most well known symbol of the Olympic Games is the 5 interlocking colored rings (blue, yellow, black, green and red) on a white background. This design is well recognized and is used on the Olympic flag and to promote the games. Continue reading if you want to know who designed this famous logo.
Who designed the Olympic rings?
The simple design of the Olympic rings was developed in 1912 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who was the founder of the modern Olympic Games. The five rings are said to symbolize the five continents involved in the games. These are Africa, America (North and South), Asia, Australia, Oceania and Europe. This means that there are actually 6 continents involved in the Olympics, but the Americas are counted as one continent. Antarctica isn’t included at all because Antarctica isn’t a country and doesn’t have an Olympic team!
At the time that it was designed the colors of the logo could be used to make any national flag in the world. For example, blue and yellow for Sweden, and blue, white and red for France. However, this is no longer true as some nations use colors not seen in the Olympic rings, such as the orange in the Armenian flag.
The symbol and flag made their official debut at the Olympic Games in Antwerp in 1920, but their use didn’t became widespread until the 1936 Summer Olympics.
Did you know?
A popular myth states that de Coubertin’s design was inspired by an ancient Greek design. In the 1950’s a stone was found in Delphi, site of the first Olympics, with the Olympic symbol. However, the people who discovered the stone didn’t realize that it had been carved in 1936 during a promotion for the games later that year!
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