Here are 4 of our favorite posters for the 2020 Toyko Olympics

Much of the art surrounding sports nowadays is very commercialized and branded. Picture a high-contrast image of a player surrounded by shapes and lines to create motion, maybe with a big fat logo behind them. We’ve all seen it. So when we see art that is more conceptual, especially when it focuses on sports, it is easy to pass it off because it feels too different.

With the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games curating a series of posters to promote this year’s Games, I wanted to share some of my favorites because I believe aspects like this are lost when looking at the Olympics as a whole. At first glance, it is hard to tell if many (or any) of these posters have anything to do with the Olympics. I would urge you, though, to read the artists’ descriptions of these pieces to help shed some light on the intended message behind them, and allow yourself to walk away with a different perspective of the art.

I love art. I love sports. I want more of both of these. We all know art plus sports has the potential to be bad, especially when attempting to represent an athlete’s likeness or challenging fan perspectives. In this instant digital age, a lot of the art on sports stories is little more than a photograph with a splash of added color, and this is coming from someone who makes his living adding a splash of color to sports photographs. There are incredible pieces out there that, once you dig a bit deeper, can reveal interesting perspectives on the psychological and physical aspects of sports.

Manga is an interesting art form, and I think for most people it sits on that line where they either love it or barely know it exists. That doesn’t matter here because the way this is paneled and structured is fantastic. You can immediately get a sense of the athlete in the tunnel getting pumped and hearing the chants before going onto the field. The artist explains, “Concluding with the line, ‘To be continued!’ each weekly episode has left readers on the edge of their seats, just like watching a real match.” Everyone can relate to that, and I think no matter the art style used here, the concept delivery is so strong. Comics are the best, for those of you who don’t know.

This arguably might be the most “sports” of all the posters, and I believe the simplicity of this poster is what makes it so strong. The restraint brings clarity to the movement and form. The artist’s comments on diversity in the Olympics and the use of ring colors are subtle and tastefully done. I would love to see a series of these or maybe see what the artist would do if this was country-specific.

A piece like this typically makes a lot of people scratch their heads and say things like, “I could make THAT!” or “What the hell is that supposed to be?!” To me, this piece felt familiar and I liked it from a mere visual perspective. Once I read the explanation by the artist, though, I was in love. This is the representation of the bottom of a skateboard! I am someone who has spent most of his life skateboarding and even I forget that skateboarding, along with a few other “extreme” sports, is now in the Olympics. The artist’s explanation is so thoughtful and it resonates with me on a few levels. Sometimes it is hard to believe a bunch of paint swishes and scratches can connect dots in your head.

Unfortunately, this poster for the Paralympics doesn’t have an artist explanation, but it probably doesn’t need it. At first blush, it looks like something out of a fantasy novel. But when you take the time to study this piece you can see it is all about the games. I was so enamored by the details that I almost missed that the athlete is shooting their bow with their legs and teeth. Every little background piece seems important and serves a purpose. And to top it off the colors are so dreamy and contrast perfectly with the intensity of the archer. I could look at this all day.

I’ll also mention these posters are supposed to revolve around the theme of “Requiem and Rebirth,” but I have a hard time picking that up on any significant level. And I also have questions about the posters’ actual purpose. Were these meant to act as advertisements put around the city? Or was the idea to use the collection as a museum exhibition? I feel as though these wouldn’t serve well as a marketing tool because of the conceptual nature and their inability to quickly communicate the poster’s intention, which is (or should be) to bring attention to the 2020 Olympics. Either way, these are some really interesting pieces of art that are worth spending some time with and learning more about.

It is also worth checking out past Olympic posters for a little perspective from where it’s all come from.