kiss my black ads: A WIN for Rio. Guest post from Lee Davis

Just saw the announcement for the new Rio 2016 Olympics logo. More about the meaning behind the design here: something about "diversity", blah, blah, blah, "energy", blah, blah, blah, and "Olympic spirit", blah, blah, blah.

Truth be told, I like it. It "feels" like I imagine Rio de Janeiro to be: warm, fun, carefree, colorful… The color pallet says summer and the stylized figures suggest teamwork and community. If I were the AD, I might have asked to see a version where the Olympic rings were more incorporated into the design somehow. Overall though, I think it compares well to many of the past Olympics city logos . It's certainly much better than that horror created for London 2012 . It also seems to have potential for some interesting animation. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the supporting graphics as they're developed.

The thing that struck me though (here comes the angry black man), was what I found when I visited the Tatil Design (the agency that created the mark) website . Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I always head to the "About Us/About our Team" section of any design/advertising agency I visit. To my surprise(?), no, not the right word… dismay(?), better, I'll go with that. To my dismay, in a city that's fully half black or brown, the agency is still lilly (by South American standards) white. A quick Google translation reveals that the brownest looking person there holds the title "General Services".

Damn.

I'm not naive. I know Brazilians deal with many of the same racial issues that we deal with here—many to a larger degree. But, for some reason, I was holding out hope.