Irish Olympic Brand Gets New Name and Logo

A new name and logo have been unveiled for the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of Ireland with a name change from The Olympic Council of Ireland to Olympic Federation of Ireland.

A modernised Olympic crest will also be sported by the Team Ireland athletes for the first time at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires next month.

The new identity falls at the halfway mark between the Summer Games. “This is a good juncture for us to launch our new identity,” explains CEO Peter Sherrard, “We are just under two years out from Tokyo 2020 and we are currently planning a range of initiatives with partners and sponsors to help support the athletes of Team Ireland in the build-up.”

The new logo was designed by creative agency Atomic Sport, with the aim of developing an identity within the IOC guidelines.

One of the guiding principles behind the logo design was also said to have been the need to modernise the Olympic crest to make it suitable and effective on an increasing number of digital platforms.

Another consideration was the importance of creating something that had a connection to the history of the Irish Olympic movement. According to the designers, the inspiration for the crest shape stemmed from the Irish Olympic team kit worn around the time of Ronnie Delany’s gold medal in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, which is said to be one of the country’s greatest ever Olympic moments.

Director of Atomic Sport, Patrick Murphy points out, “we also wanted to ensure that we created a logo that would sit proudly on the athletes’ team kit as a badge of honour to acknowledge their achievements and efforts.”

The Team Ireland athletes at the Youth Olympic Games will be the first to sport the new logo. The Youth Olympic Games take place in the Buenos Aires, Argentina, from the 6 – 18 October 2018.

Source: Team Ireland