OREANDA-NEWS. September 28, 2012. The visual representation of the Olympic sports that will be staged at the 2014 Games in Sochi has been announced. The Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee presented a series of the pictograms that have been developed: 22 stylized images of sports and Olympic disciplines for maximum visual impact. Not only will they be used to guide visitors at the Olympic venues, they will also appear on tickets, events schedules and Sochi 2014 licensed merchandise. The Sochi 2014 pictograms are part of the integrated conceptual Look of the 2014 Games and are based on generally accepted international standards of visual Olympic designations.

When creating the graphic design of the Sochi 2014 pictograms, the artists were inspired by the experience and achievements of previous generations. They avoided simply reworking past designs, but instead carefully adapted the original visual historic style fr om the 1980 Moscow Olympics, taking into account modern views. The style of the Moscow 1980 pictograms, with their incredible grace and emotion, are powerful symbols of unity from the past and resonate strongly with most Russians. The understated quality and visual simplicity, the combination of smooth and straight lines, the lack of sharp corners, all of this helped to give a sense of purpose and dynamism to the Sochi 2014 pictograms.

The pictograms complement the concept of the integrated Look of the Games in Sochi, the patchwork quilt (the combination of 16 ornaments of the most famous national crafts in Russia, from Gzhel to Khokhloma). The graphics used on the pictograms match the Sochi 2014 logo as they have the same line proportions and all the corners where the lines connect are rounded.

In the Sochi 2014 series, a number of Olympic pictograms have been created for freestyle and snowboard sports. This has been done as the types of event within these disciplines vary significantly. Therefore, the number of pictograms does not directly correspond to the number of disciplines in the Olympic Program (22 pictograms for 15 Olympic disciplines).

All 22 icons have been developed using two color schemes. The first is, a monochrome color scheme, the second color scheme comprises of yellow, violet, green, dark blue and red. At the heart of this design is the concept of the integrated visual Look of the Sochi 2014 Games, the patchwork quilt of Russia. These pictograms will be used in the Olympic stadiums, on tickets and on the Sochi 2014 licensed merchandise.

The President of the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee, Dmitry Chernyshenko, noted:

"The new Sochi 2014 pictograms have been carefully created incorporating the Look of the first Winter Games in the history of Russia. The symbolic images of sport will be everywhere; at our Olympic venues, on licensed merchandise and even on Olympic tickets. The pictograms turned out to be intuitively understandable. I have no doubt that the pictograms will have particular significance to all residents of Russia, as these new symbols have been influenced by the 1980 Moscow Olympics pictograms, "creating a bridge" from the past to the future".