Olympic pictograms first appeared at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. In order to overcome the communication and language barriers imposed by an international event such as the Olympic games, the Japanese hosts developed a universal picture-based language. Graphical symbols were used not just to identify various sports and disciplines in the Games’ programme, but to mark services intended for visitors. In this way, the Olympics played a key role in spreading “picture signs” that became omnipresent in our lives. Since 1964 every following Olympic Games issued its own set of pictograms. At the workshop, attendees were introduced to the creation and development of Olympic pictograms and created their own pictograms to represent sports.

Technique: collage and coloured pens.

Lecturers: dr.sc. Ana Popovčić, art historian, Croatian Olympic Academy ; Vinka Mortigjija Anušić, advisory professor, academic painter