What’s In the Box? (The Olympics Medalists’ Box)
I haven’t watched too much of the Olympics this summer so maybe the announcers explain this every single time they show a medals ceremony, but in case you didn’t know, the long, thin boxes given to the medalists along with their medals contain the official poster of the Games (and a plushie).
The poster was created by illustrator Ugo Gattoni and is a sort of Where’s Waldo / Busy Busy Town representation of the Games and its venues.
The designer had total creative freedom. While working to a brief and respecting the look of the Games, he still managed to maintain his own playful and joyful style.
This is why eight mascots are hidden within the posters. In fact, whatever age you are, there is something within the artwork that you will be able to enjoy.
The biggest images of the poster I can find are here if you want to zoom in to see the details. There are also zoomed-in images and videos on Gattoni’s Instagram.
The Olympic poster is the twin of the poster for the Paralympic Games, also created by Gattoni:
Together, they create one unified view of the 2024 Summer Games.
If you’d like to buy your own version of the poster, check out the official Olympics store.
Discussion 6 comments
You can't really see them at high-res on X/Twitter without opening the raw image, so I grabbed the highest-resolution version of both, combined them in Photoshop, and put them on my server:
https://random.waxy.org/images/olympics_2024_poster.jpg
I'd love one of these to put on the wall, they're gorgeous. Just ... £34 delivered is a bit steep for a poster, especially given how small they are (50cm x 70cm — a little over 2 ft tall). There's so much wonderful detail in the things that you really need, well, poster-sized posters ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Oooo, there's also the night version.
These also remind me a bit of those eboy pixel city posters from way back when. (How was that already so long ago?)
Same! I even checked if Gattoni was associated with eboy but he doesn't seem to be.
This is less exciting, though arguably more practical, than my guess that they were baguettes.
With a little wheel of Brie and/or butter...this would actually be perfect.
Hello! In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!
In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. Check out your options for renewal.
This is the name that'll be displayed next to comments you make on kottke.org; your email will not be displayed publicly. I'd encourage you to use your real name (or at least your first name and last initial) but you can also pick something that you go by when you participate in communities online. Choose something durable and reasonably unique (not "Me" or "anon"). Please don't change this often. No impersonation..
Note: I'm letting folks change their display names because the membership service that kottke.org uses collects full names and I thought some people might not want their names displayed publicly here. If it gets abused, I might disable this feature.
If you feel like this comment goes against the grain of the community guidelines or is otherwise inappropriate, please let me know and I will take a look at it.
Hello! In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!