VSA Partners’ brand strategy and design for the Chicago 2016 bid helped define the city’s global image as it competed for two years to host the Olympic Summer Games. On a pro-bono basis, VSA created the brand strategy and designed the logo and identity system that represented Chicago as the U.S. candidate city as it competed against three other world-class cities for the honor of hosting the 2016 games.

VSA work was seen extensively throughout Chicago during the bid effort, and internationally as the U.S. bid culminated at the Copenhagen, Denmark, meeting of the International Olympic Committee on Oct. 2, where Rio de Janiero, Brazil, was chosen by the IOC as the 2016 host city.

In particular, an expanded program of communications and events featuring the VSA-designed logo and identity system began appearing throughout Chicago in the spring of 2009, culminating in activities for IOC panel members who came to Chicago in early April to tour proposed event sites and evaluate the city’s viability to host the games.

The logo and accompanying visual identity also gained visibility in 2009 with the launch of an intensive communications effort to encourage Chicago-area residents, businesses and civic organizations to back the bid. Transit and out-of-home advertising, building murals and environmental installations, banners and video productions were deployed throughout the city, with particular emphasis on O’Hare International Airport and Midway Airport, as well as other potential competition venues visited by the IOC evaluation panel.

The identity is a tribute to Chicago’s unique physical attributes—a world-class location united by water, green space and architecture. The Chicago 2016 logo blends the colors of the five Olympic rings surrounding the city’s six-pointed star, evoking serene blue lakefront, vibrant green landscape and fiery skyline. It also evokes Chicago’s Games concept—to host compact Olympic Games celebrated in the center of the city, along the lakefront and in the city’s parks.

In addition to the logo itself, the visual identity was conceived as a system of versatile graphic elements, extending the “painted” look of the Chicago 2016 symbol through brushed colors and athlete photography. These identity elements have established the foundation for advertising and communications, providing the design basis for the Chicago 2016 Web site, event signage, broadcast graphics, clothing and hundreds of visible components used by the bid committee throughout the selection process.