Parisians braved the cold, gathering at the Arc de Triomphe at the top of the famed Avenue des Champs-Elysées on Tuesday night for a dramatic reveal of the official logo for the French capital city’s bid to host the 2024 Olympic Games.
At exactly 20:24 (8:24 pm) the Arc de Triomphe displayed a light and sound show that eventually settled into the formation of a colorful 2 and a 4, which together form the Eiffel Tower. The Paris 2024 organizing committee tweeted out, “Our new logo embodies the dynamism, creativity and modernity of #Paris.” The logo was created by the design firm, Dragon Rouge.
Paris is the second bid city to unveil its graphic identity. Rome launched its new logo on December 14, 2015 at the Palazzetto dello Sport in front of an audience of 2500 schoolchildren and many of Italy’s greatest Olympians. It is expected that the two other bidders, Budapest and Los Angeles, will announce their logos this week, too. The visual identity of each city is likely to be part of the bid documents that they will turn in to the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne, Switzerland on Wednesday, February 17.
The Paris 2024 logo reveal was one step in a crucial week for the city’s candidacy. Earlier in the day the committee announced four new corporate partners (Caisse des Depots, Elior Group, JCDecaux and RATP), each of whom will contribute about €2 million to the bid campaign, adding to the €2 million the committee has already raised from the French lottery company, La Française des Jeux.
The week will conclude with the delivery of the Paris 2024 documents to the IOC on Wednesday, February 17; at the same time the Paris 2024 Committee will launch the public website to promote its bid. Paris hosted the Olympic Games in 1900 and in 1924.
