COVER’s feet are twitching in the starting blocks. The Olympics are four days away. Time to think souvenirs. If your eyeballs can’t quite cope with the London 2012 Olympics geezer-style logo emblazoned on home furnishings, get yourself over to Thomas Paul and buy one of his 18 inch orange Geo/Metric cushions.
The cushion’s “modern shapes and bold hues” aren’t attributed to graphic maestro Lance Wyman, but the homage is evident. The concentric maze-like op art poster designed by Wyman, Pedro Ramirez Vazquez, and Eduardo Terrazas for the 1968 Mexico Olympics is famous. Here is the back cover of a vintage programme your scribe bought on her last trip to Ciudad Mexico.
Wyman also designed the 1968 Mexico Olympics pictograms, and with Arturo Quiniones, and Francisco Gallardo, the wayfinding logos for the city’s “delegaciones” or boroughs, and signage for the Metro which opened the year after the Olympics.
When the games are over and its time to bid a tearful adieu? We will unfurl our Pom Pom silk and cotton scarf in the orange colour we’ve dubbed “Lance Wyman’s Tangerine Dream”, and wave the Olympians home. Provided of course we don’t have our brollies up for yet more summer showers. DJ
