Olympic bid Project : San Francisco
Being the commercial, cultural, and financial center of Northern California, the county and city of San Francisco has a little of everything. Founded on June 29, 1776 it now boasts the 16th most populous city in the United States, making it the fourth most populous in California, as of 2019 with a populous of about 881,549 residents. With an area of about 46.89 square miles, mostly at the north end of the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area. Putting it at the second most densely populated large U.S. city.
Birthplace of the United Nations, liberating Ideas, “hippie culture”, the sexual revolution, peace movement, gay rights, its easy to see how earned the title of the center of liberal activism in the United States.
Home to what can be known as the global center of high technology and innovation, Silicon valley located in the southern part of San Francisco, was once known just for the production of silicon-based MOS transistors and integrated circuit chips which is where the name “silicon” was garnered from. This provided the perfect startup ecosystem for high-tech innovation which it is now known for, making it home to a many start-up companies, global high tech companies, and over 30 fortune 1000 businesses.
But its most attractive attractions are not those listed above. No, its allure lies in it’s Golden state bridge ; a suspension bridge connecting San Francisco’s bay with the Pacific, transporting one into its steeped rolling hills covered in slow crawling fog and the network of street cars that crawl along its backside. It’s eclectic mix of Modern and Victorian architecture very subtle in nature clashing in a very interesting manner with the wild colors and bustling nature of its very famous Chinatown.
Image Library
Thumbnails
Designs
Further Ideation
Further Logo Designs
Type Exploration
Further Design Exploration (color and arrangement)
Final Designs
Rationale
With this project, I did have a little bit of creative block/overload because San Francisco is known for a lot of things but most popular for its iconic golden state bridge and rolling hills. And while the bridge has seen a million and one iterations making it hard to come up with a new unique take on the bridge and for the hills, it was a headache coming up with a stand-alone logo that didn’t need a background to be successful. At one of the critiques, I was told to look at it from different angles, which I did during the initial ideation process (but was blinded by a slew of side profile pictures and design iterations). But defeated by my initial take on the project I went back with entirely new eyes, it was when I saw pictures of the bridge from a car’s perspective and noticed the bridge supports that I hit a eureka moment. I messed with a couple of different designs and perspectives. But I settled on the line design because it reminded me of some long exposure pictures of cars traveling through the bridge and the lines would morph to form hurdles, a track, a swimming pool, etc. For the color designs, I picked some pastel colors used on some the street art in the area, as well as neon colors from the long exposure pictures.
