For Africa: The visual identity for the Johannesburg Olympic bid. Interview with Iaan Bekker

Abstract

In August 1993, the Johannesburg City Council, through the National Olympic Committee, put out a brief to selected design agencies requesting an identity to support their bid against Cape Town and Durban to host the 2004 Olympic Games. The proposal they chose to use came from Lindsay Smithers-PCB. Although Cape Town finally won the bid, the editors of Image &) Text found the Johannesburg identity interesting from a design point of view. They approached its designer Iaan Bekker, with an invitation to discuss pertinent aspects in the development of the identity.