Design History of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games: Emblem Selection and Participatory Design

Translated by A. Byron and Munia Hweidi

The Olympic Games is an event that attracts worldwide attention in the globalized society of today. While some look forward to viewing exceptional performances by athletes, for others the Olympics is an occasion to reaffirm their national identity with flags and anthems. Additionally, some see the Olympics as a business opportunity, while others oppose the gentrification that accompanies hosting the event. The Olympics are controversial in every respect, with both its positive and negative aspects facing heavy debate.

As with previous Olympics, many troubles arose for the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games (hereinafter referred to as the Tokyo 2020 Games). For example, during the eight years that spanned the invitation to host the Olympics and the event itself, the Prime Minister (Abe Shinzō → Suga Yoshihide), the Governor of Tokyo (Inose Naoki → Masuzoe Yōichi → Koike Yuriko), the JOC President (Takeda Tsunekazu → Yamashita Yasuhiro), and the Head of the Organizing Committee (Mori Yoshirō → Hashimoto Seiko) were all replaced. The long preparation phase for the event was bound to generate many issues for the Olympics. The "Olympic troubles" that arose reconfigured existing problems into new issues for the host city.

Of the "Olympic troubles" facing the Tokyo 2020 Games, the withdrawal and reselection of the Olympic emblem is a well-known issue. The emblem is the underlying symbol of the event and the basis for all design variations. This was the first time in Olympic Game history that the emblem was withdrawn. Clarifying what happened in the process leading up to the reselection is important not only for Olympics studies and design history, but for Japanese studies as well. Accordingly, this paper focuses on the emblem controversy of the Tokyo 2020 Games, the problems highlighted by the controversy, and how those problems were reconfigured into new issues.

Design History of the Olympic Games

The preliminary research for this paper is based in Olympics studies and design history. One of the sources that covers both fields is Markus Osterwalder's Olympic Games: The Design (2020).¹ Osterwalder, a collector, presents a comprehensive overview of Olympic design; the purpose of his work is not an analysis of the design selection process. For example, only the new emblem of the Tokyo 2020 Games is discussed, there is no mention of the withdrawn emblem. In the field of design history, one of the sources that centers on the Olympics is Jilly Traganou's Designing the Olympics: Representation, Participation, Contestation.² Traganou, a design historian, analyzes the design of the Olympics as a "representational system" with a focus on the reconstruction of national identity. The examples focus on the Tokyo 1964 Games, Athens 2004 Games, London 2012 Games, and the Anti-Olympic Movement.

Studies written in Japanese include Kuresawa Takemi's Olympics and Expo: Design History of Mega Events³ and my Olympic, Design, Marketing: The Emblem Scandal of the Tokyo 2020 Games.⁴ Kuresawa, a design critic, focuses on the "absence of design policy"; the discussion, is restricted to a presentation, rather than analysis, of the emblem controversy of the Tokyo 2020 Games.

As a sociologist, my earlier work examines the relationship between designers and advertising agencies in relation to the Olympics and analyzes the structure of the emblem controversy of the Tokyo 2020 Games. Drawing on my Olympics, Design, Marketing, this essay discusses the problems revealed by the emblem controversy of the Tokyo 2020 Games and how they were in turn reconfigured.

What Is the Emblem Controversy?

The emblem controversy refers to the uproar that occurred online when the Tokyo 2020 Games emblem became the topic of heavy debate in a one-month period, from the time the emblem was revealed to when it was withdrawn. There were two points of contention fueling the controversy. The first was "the originality of the emblem design—whether it was plagiarized." The other was "the emblem selection process—whether it was fixed." The Organizing Committee and the designer, Sano Kenjirō, would not admit to either. However, unable to gain public support, the emblem was withdrawn on September 15, 2015.⁵