In the past, he often scribbled on his school notebooks.  His obsession with the details in each letter and form became a profession, whose top achievement was the launch of Rio 2016™ font at Casa Brasil last Monday.  According to Fabio Haag, Creative Director of Dalton Maag Brazilian studio, the project, developed in collaboration with a team that includes Brazilians and consultants of different nationalities, is unprecedented in the country.

The 30-year old professional born in Rio Grande do Sul led the creative process of 23 studies until the team reached the 5,448 different characters in 8 months’ work. The original idea was to develop the font based on the lettering of the Rio 2016™ Olympic and Paralympic brands, using only three letters and four figures.

Get to know the Rio 2016™ font!

“To design a complete font based on a few letters in a logo with a single letter combination was very challenging. In a font, each letter must be harmoniously placed beside any other letter, figure or symbol.  In the specific case of Rio 2016™ logo, which resembles gestures and is full of energy, each word to be written with the font should convey this expressiveness”, affirms the self-taught advertiser and type designer.

The design team in Brazil was in charge of the creative part of the project, in permanent collaboration with Dalton Maag London studio.  At last, a foreign engineering team worked in the project’s completion phase.

The pillars of Rio 2016™ brands in the font’s nature

The creation of Rio 2016™ is clearly inspired by the pillars of Rio 2016™ Olympic and Paralympic  brands:  the “harmonious  diversity” in the letterforms, the “Olympic spirit” in the fluid stroke, the “contagious energy” in the bold and live ligatures and the “exuberant nature” in the curves of the sidewalk of Copacabana, present in letters 'm' and 'n', and letter 'r', which resembles the Rock of Gávea.

“Once many different fonts could be created from the logo, we used the essence of Rio 2016™ brand, “Passion and Transformation”, as a parameter to select the winning design concept.  The letters are drawn with a single continuous stroke, in an agile and fluid motion, suggesting the athlete's movements. At the same time, the variety present in the curves of the letterforms evokesthe unique informality inspired by the joyfulness of the Brazilian people”, analyses Fabio.

A ground-breaking project in Brazil, the font is part of a wide programme conducted by Rio 2016™ Brand Management. Pictograms, mascots, medals, slogan, competition and non-competition sites’ decoration, countdown campaigns and tickets layout, among other products, will also be launched.  Several of these products will use the font as a tool.

“We believe that showing the importance of a proprietary typography for a brand is the biggest legacy of this project.  It has the power to enhance any design project, expanding its concept in each written word. The personality that was synthetized in the Rio 2016™ logo is now echoed throughout communication channels, regardless of the media; be it a largeLCD panel or a black-and-white pamphlet, the font overcomes these limitations and delivers the essence of the brand, wherever it is”, finalises the font’s creator.