Designed for the 2020 Summer Olympics, this pictogram family was inspired by the Turkish Shadow Theatre Karagöz puppets and developed at the Basel School of Design in 2009 as an MFA dissertation project. Conceived as a research-led thesis, the project investigates alternative approaches to Olympic pictogram systems by questioning the dominance of universal neutrality in favor of culturally grounded visual thinking.
In contrast to conventional Olympic pictogram practices, the project argues for the inclusion of specific cultural references without direct imitation. Rather than replicating the source imagery, the visual language is constructed through abstraction, repetition, and reinterpretation.
The research further explores how non-representational qualities and visual neutrality can coexist within a coherent family of pictograms. Strong emphasis is placed on experimental methods, typological research, and process-based outcomes as central components of the design inquiry.
© Gökhan Numanoğlu, Abu Dhabi, 2022
