Tokyo 2020

2011–2012
The official Olympic bid logo for Tokyo 2020 was unveiled on the 30th November 2011 after a nationwide competition for an applicable design. The logo was created by Joshibi University of Art and Design student, Ai Shimamine.

The emblem exhibits a wreath composed of cherry blossoms, a well-known floral symbol of Japan. It incorporates the colours of the Olympic Rings as well as Purple, which celebrates the Edo period. The circular shape represents diversity with each petal representing the importance and dependencies of the world's people with one another. According to an interview with Shimamine, the wreath was included as she saw that wreaths "carry a message of 'coming back again'." She saw the hosting of the Olympics as an opportunity to reinvigorate Japan through sport.

2012–2013
Tokyo was declared an official candidate for the 2020 Summer Olympics on the 23rd May 2012. To reflect this move, the Olympic Rings were added to the bottom of the logo along with the words 'Candidate City'.

2013–2015, 2015–2016
Tokyo won the rights to host the games at the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires, Argentina. As such, the words 'Candidate City' was removed. This logo remained as an interim logo until the unveiling of the first version of its official emblem. This logo was reinstated in September 2015 as the organising committee took down the first design amid allegations of plagiarism.

During the process of the emblem's redrawing, the committee used a number of wordmarks as placeholders for the upcoming emblem. They were the words 'Tokyo 2020' typed in a sans serif typeface.

Olympics
The first version of the games' emblems for both the Olympics and Paralympics were presented via a special event in Tokyo at 7pm of 24 July 2015, exactly 5 years before the Olympic opening ceremony.

Both the Olympic and Paralympic symbols were designed by Kenjiro Sano; a graduate of the Department of Graphic Design at Tama Art University and winner of many graphic design awards such as the New York ADC Gold Award and the Cannes Lions Gold.

The symbol was chosen from 104 submissions and explores the fundamental mission of the Olympic movement which is to unite the world through sport. This is shown through various means and techniques in this emblem.
 * The 'T' shape of the emblem was inspired by the typefaces Didot and Bodoni whose highly serifed forms were seen by Sano as to have 'appealing strength and sensitivity'. It embodies the three themes of the emblem's design:
 * Tokyo - the host city of the event and the meeting point of the world's athletes.
 * Tomorrow - the ambition of the event to construct a better, more connected future for the world.
 * Team - the entire world unites as one team.
 * As black is the combination of all colours, the central pillar represents tolerance and diversity regardless of race, nationality or religion.
 * The circle symbolises an all-accepting planet and it's red colour stands for a beating heart. It also not only alludes to the Japanese flag, but the geographic position of Japan on the world map; in the top right corner.
 * The circle re-enforced by the negative space of the two irregular triangles denotes an open, transparent world.
 * The use of gold in the top left triangle pays homage to the last summer games held in Tokyo in 1964.

The committee continued to defend Sano's work, but became inundated with pressure to pull the design following the multiple plagiarism claims against Sano. The organising committee claimed that "we became aware of new things this weekend and there was a sense of crisis that we thought could not be ignored". The logo was generally unfavourable to the public as the committee also stated that, "we have decided that the logo cannot gain public support". Its retraction was also requested by Sano himself saying that he feels the controversy was beginning to damage the reputation of the Tokyo games and that his own reputation was under threat. They conceded that this emblem had become a PR disaster and came to the conclusion to retire it just over a month after it had been instated.

On the 2nd September 2015, the emblems designed by Kenjiro Sano were officially scrapped. The official website and social media channels have reverted to using the interim emblem by Ai Shimamine for the period until a new emblem can be selected. On the 27th January 2016, Debie stated that he will drop the suit against the organising committee, citing the mounting legal costs.

Paralympics
This paralympic emblem was near identical to its Olympic counterpart, but has two black pillars positioned to the sides as opposed to one in the middle. It represents the equal sign '=' showing the Paralympics as an event which shares the same ideals as the Olympics and holds Paralympians to the same standards of the Olympic Games. It may also be interpreted as the Roman numeral for 2, which represents the second time Tokyo plays host to the Paralympics and in inclusion, the only city at the point of writing to host the Olympics and Paralympics in the same year twice.

Like the Olympic emblem it accompanied, the Paralympic emblem was also scrapped on the 2nd September 2015.

Second Generation Shortlist (2016)
The new logo was decided by the committee as part of an open competition among Japanese citizens and residents to create the new logo. The submission period ran from the 24th November to 7 December 2015. 14,599 submissions were received within the 2 week period; 12,900 of which came from individual designers and primary school students with participant ages ranging from 12 months to 107 years old. Strict copyright checks were conducted by the IOC on all designs and the committee. The shortlist was revealed at the Toranomon Hills Mori Tower at 5pm, 8 April 2016.

Event logo
On the 25th April 2016, the revised emblem for the games were announced as the harmonized chequered emblem: candidate A from the shortlist. The emblem was designed by Asao Tokolo, a Tokyo Zokei University graduate artist born in 1969. He had several exhibitions from local museums such as Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo and the NTT InterCommunication Center in Tokyo.

The emblem is a collection of 45 boxes of three varying heights arranged into a wreath shape. The 'Tokyo 2020' wordmark is typed in a narrow variation of DIN. In some ways, this emblem resembles the initial bid logo from 2011 as they both share the circular mosaic shape and they both use DIN as their typeface.

The checkered pattern is a common design among many cultures, as well as in Japan where it was referred to as “ichimatsu moyo” in the Edo period. Each of the boxes represents different nations, all varying in culture, size and thoughts showcasing "unity in diversity". It unifies the nations using the Olympics as a platform to promote peace. The logo is set in an indigo-blue colour expressing the elegance and sophistication which Japan is renowned for.

Speaking to Associated Press, Tokolo explained that his “mind has gone blank as I just found out my design won... I put a lot of time and effort into this design as though it was my own child.”.

Look of the Games
The game's look is based on geometric forms and straight edges. The looks revolve around a perfect circle split into sections with straight horizontal and vertical lines and coloured different shades of a dominant colour. Other designs contain variants of the event emblem.

Pictograms
On the 12th March 2019; 500 days out from the Olympic opening ceremony, the organising committee unveiled the official pictograms for the Olympic Games. The designs were created by graphic designer Masaaki Hiromura from the Aichi Prefecture. Masaaki specialises in the area of corporate identity and wayfinding materials for museums, commercial facilities and street signage. The pictograms for Tokyo 2020 were heavily inspired by those from Tokyo 1964; the first Olympic Games to implement a universal visual system for events. The 1964 pictograms were constructed from a series of perfect circles and straight lines. The pictograms for 2020 takes this approach further by adding, what the video refers to as, "the vibrancy and fluidity of athlete's movements".

There are 50 unique pictograms for the 33 sports to be contested in Tokyo. Each pictogram can be presented in one of two ways; in "Free type" the symbol itself without decoration, and "Frame type", the symbol contained within a circle. Frame type is only used for minimised applications such as area maps and online. All symbols are presented in the indigo-blue of the official emblem, as well as in five traditional Japanese swatches used as sub-colours.

Medals
The designs for the Tokyo 2020 medals will be unveiled at a press conference on the 24th July 2019. The organising committee has aimed to create the entirety of the event's 5,000 medals with recycled materials from discarded electronic devices, a first for any Olympic or Paralympic Games.

Torch Relay
On the 20th March 2019, the organising Committee unveiled the emblem and torch for the Olympic Torch Relay at a press conference in Tokyo.

The emblem contains three vermilion rectangles, consistent with those from the event logo. The rectangles have a gradient effect towards the top-right edges to emulate the look of a flame. The gradient also implements a traditional method of woodblock printing or "ukiyo-e" called Fukibokashi. The ochre curvature represents the vast expanses of land that the torch and its flame will travel across during the relay.

The torch is inspired by the shape of the Olympic Flame and of the cherry blossom; widely considered Japan's national flower. The start of the relay also coincides with the start of the cherry blossom season in Japan. The housing was constructed from 30% recycled steel, previously used as part of temporary housing in the aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. Its manufacturing utilises the same aluminium extrusion methods that was used to build the Shinkansen (bullet train). The torch housing altogether is produced from just one sheet of aluminium and weighs just 1 kilogram.

Nippon Festival


The Nippon Festival will act as the main cultural showcase before the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The 'festival mark' was created by Asao Tokolo; the game emblems' creator, and is derived from the same 3-box structure of the logos. It however deviates slightly from the games emblems by being multicoloured, using pink, yellow , dark teal , dark blue and the dark purple used in the emblems. The mark itself depicts three stripes intersecting into one central point.

To accompany the mark, algorithmic designer Shohei Matsukawa created a system which can generate different variations of the emblem on a flat plain or a sphere. The system will make up much of the festival's visual identity.

Event logo
Both the Olympic and Paralympic emblems were unveiled at the same time. Both emblems use the same 45-box system to create a circular shape and the same color. The Paralympic Emblem is used in unison with the Olympic emblem on social media and their website.

Pictograms
The Paralympic pictograms were unveiled on the 13th April 2019, 500 days from the official start of the Paralympic Games. These pictograms were designed in tandem with their Olympic counterparts with the same designer, and the two sets respect the same design philosophies. The Paralympic set contains 23 individual pictograms, one for each sport. The primary difference between both sets is that, like all modern Paralympic events, the Paralympic pictograms contain finer details to differentiate the two events. This helps to better represent the athletes of the Paralympics and inform audiences of the nature of Paralympic sports. The Paralympic pictograms feature equipment used by Paralympians, such as prosthetics and wheelchairs. Some of the figures are also postured differently, depending on the event.

Medals
The designs for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic medals will be unveiled alongside the Olympic medals sometime in Summer 2019.

Torch Relay
On the 25th March 2019, five days after the Olympic Torch Relay event, the Paralympic torch relay logo and Paralympic Torch were also unveiled. The Paralympic relay logos is quite similar to its Olympic counterpart, but it has different colours and the ochre curve altered slightly. Likewise, the Paralympic torch is near-identical to the Olympic torch, but is emblazoned with the Paralympic emblem and is Sakura Pink as opposed to gold.