My LA 2028 Logo

It definitely caught me off guard when LA 2028 unveiled its Olympic logos the other day.  Olympic logos are generally revealed five years in advance (Paris 2024's only came out last year), so it was quite a surprise to see already see LA's a full eight years before the Games.  Ordinarily, we wouldn't even find out the host of an Olympics until seven years prior!

Anyway, one of the reasons they released the logo so early is because they hope it can help them stay relevant over the next eight years.  With that in mind, there isn't one official logo.  In fact, there are infinite possibilities.  The base of the logo is a black "L", "2" and "8", but the "A" is up to each person's individual creativity.  So, everybody's "A" is literally different.

To be honest, I'm lukewarm about the idea.  I'm not completely opposed to the concept, and it's definitely a way to get people to take ownership and feel excited for the LA Olympics, even if they aren't for another eight years.  But you need one, official mark to create a consistent brand, especially for something as high-profile as an Olympics (although, I have a feeling they will settle on one when the time comes to put it on signage, tickets, etc.).

LA 2028 asked a number of athletes and celebrities to create their own versions of the logo, and those were among the designs that were included in the reveal.  Some aren't bad.  Others are horrible.  (None of them compare to their beautiful bid logo, however.)

Even though I'm not a fan of the ever-changing logo, it got me thinking about what my version would look like.  And, once I decided what that would be, I took to Photoshop and brought it to life.  Before I show it to you, though, I want to tell you about my source of inspiration.

I've never been to LA (I, of course, plan on changing that in 2028).  Whenever I think of the city, though, I think glitz.  I think glamour.  I think Hollywood.  Most of all, I think stars.  Which, of course, immediately made me think of two things: the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the color gold.  And that's what led me to create this logo, my version of the LA 2028 emblem:

My star looks like one of the stars you'd see on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and I wanted it to be gold because of how much the color means to both the city and the Olympics.  It's the color of the ultimate prize.  All of the entertainment awards are gold.  And, of course, every Olympian's goal is to win a gold medal.  So, considering both of those things, it was very important to me that the star be gold.

If you think the star being gold is the only symbolism here, you'd be wrong.  In fact, every element of the star was chosen deliberately.  Even my decision to go with a five-pointed star was on purpose.  That one's pretty straightforward.  The five points on the star are for the five Olympic rings, which themselves represent every continent and every flag.

The star is outlined in red, white and blue.  That's a nod to the 1984 Olympics.  The logo for those Games was red, white and blue stars streaking across the page.  (And those three colors, obviously, are also on the American flag, a nod to the host country.)

In the middle of the star, I have a black disc with three white streaks.  That's where I really took inspiration from the Walk of Fame.  Those stars, of course, have the circle with the star's industry underneath their name.  In this case, I don't have a name to put above the disc, but it's a nod to the Walk of Fame.  I made it black to match the text elements of the logo.

Originally, I was going to put the Olympic rings in the middle of the black disc.  Then I realized that would be redundant since the Olympic rings are already prominently displayed at the bottom of the logo.  That also would've made it look way too similar to the London 2012 logo.  So instead I settled on three lines (or "streaks"), which are arranged to make it look like a shooting star.  Those streaks also have a hidden meaning.

That hidden meaning is actually three-fold.  LA will become the third city to host the Olympics three times, so each streaks represents one of those Games.  The LA Coliseum was one of the primary venues at each of those Olympics.  The streaks are also a nod to the LA Coliseum's signature columns.  Finally, the streak in the middle is slightly higher to signify the medals stand, where the gold medalist stands on the top step.

For the Paralympics, there are only slight changes.  The order of the red, white and blue would be reversed (it would go, from the inside, blue, white red on the Paralympic version, as opposed to red, white, blue on the Olympic version), and the Olympic rings would obviously be replaced by the Paralympic agitos.  The middle of the black disc, meanwhile, would have only two streaks, arranged horizontally, signifying that the Paralympics are equal to the Olympics.

While I'm not a fan of the "everlasting A" concept, there are elements of it that are cool.  I like hearing the stories of why different people designed their "A" a certain way.  And now you know the inspiration for mine.