After all, there's no money in blogging, and it was yesterday -- the 3,000 Days milestone for the start of the next Winter Olympic Games on U.S. soil -- when organizers in the Beehive State announced new branding as "Utah 2034" at ceremonies inside the international airport coded SLC.
Busy bees, indeed. And their news got its share of buzz.
Here's a look at how Salt Lake City's NBC affiliate KSL covered the festivities including an unveiling by the state's governor:
Watching the news via YouTube livestream inspired both waves of memories from Salt Lake 2002 and optimism for what's ahead for Utah 2034.
Curiosity was instantly piqued as to responses as compared to mine. This USA Today response includes a quote Lindsey Vonn shared when I asked about her 2034 role during the recent Team USA Media Summit.
Just over 30 hours since the first impression, the distinct Utah 2034 logo and theme grew on me, though it took a view or two of the explanatory video, which sheds light on how the state's topography informed the original font:
According to the committee's press release, the new "wordmark" (not a word in any dictionary I checked) for Utah 2034 accompanied the unveiling of state-shaped public art in the airport (see photo via the Deseret News) and the launch of merchandise "... giving fans access to gear more than eight years ahead of the Games" with some revenue shared with LA28.
The media kit for the unveiling further explains the branding's special font.
"The Utah 2034 Wordmark is inspired by Utah's varied landscape, where desert buttes, mountain peaks and winding rivers create a sense of constant movement and transformation."
OK. Still more from the press kit:
"[The Games] are rarely awarded nearly a decade before the event. To help host regions build early awareness and momentum, the IOC allows "Transition Logos" to be created long before the full Brand Identity" ... limited to typography--without symbols or icons--reserving the full creative expression for the official Games emblem release closer [to the Olympiad]."
This graphic illustrates these details:
So anyone who is critical of the new look for Utah 2034 can breath easy ... a replacement is on the horizon in, say, 2,000 days or so.
Meanwhile, in France, the organizing committee for the 2030 Winter Olympic Games does not seem to yet have a website let alone a wordmark.
Methinks executives in that alpine host region near coastal Nice -- with just over two months before their handover ceremony from Milan-Cortina -- yesterday uttered of Utah 2034 things like sacrebleu or putain de merde or even pourquoi n'y avons-nous pas pense? in response to the retailed-centered motivation americaine.
Merci, Google Translate.
Through an informal poll of family and friends via my personal Facebook page and the page for this blog, an Oklahoma cousin was first to chime in "... it's difficult to read."
Other feedback ranged from "cool" and "love it" to "on par" with Games branding then "it's junk" or "messy" and reminiscent "of an obstacle course." My favorite comment so far, it's a "little Klingonish" (another new word for moi).
I'm awaiting some expert input from a fellow International Society of Olympic Historians board member who literally wrote the book on brand identity in the Olympic Movement. My guess is someone in the next paragraph perused its pages during the Utah 2034 process, and I wrote to ask them just that.
A pleasant surprise from the press kit is that a team of four Team USA Paralympians collaborated with chief brand consultant Molly Mazzolini, who sports some serious creds in an out of the Olympic Family, and pros from Works Collective, Boncom and the Utah Office of Tourism.
A less pleasant realization: Not all of the unveiled merch for Utah 2034 is yet available online. Though it was easy to discover the Paralympian input-inspired black and white logo pins, the polos and hats remain in an undisclosed warehouse and/or sales link.
The bottom line is I rather like Utah 2034 and it will be interesting to see how the 2030 Winter and Brisbane 2032 organizers respond, or don't, with their own wordmarks.
And for anyone in SLC feeling miffed by the state-inclusive rebrand, your city still has one of the best Tony-winning Broadway musical songs to celebrate (a personal, albeit distant longshot, wish list tune for the opening ceremony in 2,999 nights).
Image credits: Airport press conference photo via Deseret News' Scott G Winterton; handout images via Utah 2034; archived photo from 2002 by Brian Bahr; "Star Trek" images via this page.
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