Philately Fridays: United States, 1972

It's hard to go wrong with a stamp design when you're starting with Otl Aicher's outstanding and timeless icons for the 1972 Olympic Games.

Philately Fridays: Mexico, 1972

Otl Aicher's branding for the 1972 Munich Olympics is one of my favorite identity systems of all time. Here are some of those fantastic colors and graphics applied to a postage stamp from Mexico.



Click here to see more of Aicher's design work for the '72 Olympics.

Olympics pictograms: Munich 1972

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German graphic designer Otl Aicher brought the Olympic symbol design game to a whole new level with his designs for the 1972 games, held in Munich. His event icons have become, well... iconic, used and abused by designers and artists to this day. There's something so concise and finite about the way he captured each sport and represented it with a series of dots and horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines.

Aside from the pictograms, Aicher also created an entire universe of astonishingly gorgeous posters, brochures, and other printed matter for the games.







Oh and how about some Olympic event matchbooks?!?!?



Credits must go to the original collectors of these great items. Please check out the Otl Aicher image pool on Flickr for more images and info!