The Paris Olympics 2024 reminded us that we never got over México 68 design.
56 years ago the world reunited to watch for the first time an Opening Ceremony on Color TV. You heard it right, it was the first time any olympic was on Color TV. More than 600 million people tuned in for a celebration of color and México.
But how did Mexico City get to host the 68 Olympics?
Mexico started a campaign led by architect Pedro Ramírez Vásquez (designer of the National Anthropology Museum!), Eduardo Terrazas and Lance Wyman, they hired students and professionals to come up with a strategy for the bidding race.
The visual identity of México 68 reunited traditional and contemporary references with strong color visuals. It changed how México was perceived and became the design gold standard for the Olympics.
This is color as a driving force of change!
México City: Olympics in color
We selected images of México’s 68 Olympics from the UNAM Film Archive, The Olympic Museum and Lance Wyman archives for this trip down memory lane.
Thanks to a team of designers and architects led by Pedro Ramírez Vásquez, Lance Wyman and Eduardo Terrazas, the visual identity of México 68 touched every corner of Mexico City.
Color was everywhere and still is.
Color, design and architecture are revealing through new perspectives the extraordinary and complicated history of that period.
We want to take time and reflect on 1968, a year marked by social mobilizations, student protests and a big project of cultural change. México 68 visual identity was articulated as a means of communication that believed it possible to renew social and individual practices. That brings a new hopeful light on what color and design can do.
5 ways Acaríciame was inspired by the Color Olympics in México
Guilty as charged of being influenced by the Olympic pink and orange!
Acaríciame is one of our most beloved products.When designing this colorful solid lip serum, we had some things in mind: it had to be a work of beauty, it had to tell a powerful story of the Mexican colors, and it had to be clean and plastic-free.
Our research made us obsess over how Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, Eduardo Terrazas and Lance Wyman used color for the México 68 Olympics.
Of all the patterns and combinations, we picked these shades of pink and orange for their intensity and beauty.That’s what you will see in our secondary packaging: how traditional themes such as the pyramid, mixed with the modern pink and orange of the Mexico 68 Olympics, are key elements of design to showcase how the Mexican culture inspires us.
1. Pink & Orange: A match made in the Olympus, a bold combination of colors that we decided to use in our external packaging
2. Geometry: We took with the pyramid shape and angles to create a modern design inspired in tradition
3. Repetition: We used graphic elements to be able to add and combine color for everywhere Acaríciame is displayed
4. Combination: Acaríciame is designed to be matched and combined to create new shapes
5. Have fun with it: Stack, play, repeat, always in orange and pink!
Gold in being plastic-free
For us, it’s color, it’s México, it’s being plastic-free.
The heroism of the Olympic victories teaches us that behind every medal there is a lot of dedication, hard work, effort, discipline and dreams.
This is how we see our commitment: as a day-to-day practice that can inspire others, that can be a reference for change. We believe that this industry needs to take action and we would like to sum every day more voices that are willing to eliminate plastic, embrace color and clean beauty.
Mírame, Acaríciame, Admírame, our plastic-free, colorful, México inspired makeup are our tools for change.
While the athletes return home to continue with their training, to think about everything that lies ahead, we want to commemorate the colors of México 68 to inspire us to continue promoting plastic-free makeup and always pursue that gold medal of a plastic-free world full of color.
This is our homage to the groundbreaking work of design lead by Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, Eduardo Terrazas and Lance Wyman for Mexico 68. We hope that the spirit of the Color Olympics will always remain with us.
