The Youth Olympic Games
are a highly regarded international athletic competition for talented young athletes between the ages of 15 and 18. It is structured similarly to the Olympic Games and features a mix of traditional and cutting-edge sports like ice hockey and basketball in 3-x-3 formats, sport climbing, and breaking.
Medal Design Competition
The Winter Youth Olympic Games Gangwon 2024 medal design competition offered artists a unique platform to exhibit their creativity on a global scale. Spanning five weeks, the competition welcomed participants worldwide to craft designs for the obverse of the medal, drawing inspiration from the core values of the Winter YOG.
During the competition, over 3,000 designs were submitted from 120 countries showcasing creativity and talent. This is 10 times more entries for the competition than the YOG of Lausanne 2020. My medal design was shortlisted among the best designs in the competition, and here is some of the process that led me to it.
The slogan 'grow together, shine forever' expresses the pivotal ideas of the Games’ vision: ‘growth, coexistence, harmony, and future’ through the message of the spirit and hope for the future and the spirit of the growing young people. This marries with the Organising Committee’s vision: ‘Youth celebrating peaceful coexistence and unity through sport to create a better future together’,” said Kim Chulmin, YOGOC’s Secretary General.
For me to better understand the project, I decided to do a word map with the main words I wanted to represent with my different sketches.
Design Process
From the YOG slogan and the above word map, I crafted five distinct medal versions, each encapsulating diverse aspects, evident in the initial rough sketches, subsequently refined to enhance clarity and detail.
Ideas
In the subsequent phase, I translated the designs into medal renderings, aiming to discern which depiction best embodies the essence of the slogan "grow together, shine forever," refining the renderings to ensure clarity and resonance with the intended message.
Renderings
too many things, message is not clear
doesn't look good when rendered
olympic rings are not included in the design and they look confusing
does not represent the movement it was intended
this design aligns more with the slogan grow together, shine forever and correctly implements the olympic rings in its design
In this final installment of the overview of my design process, I get into the details of refining the medal concept and defining the details. In many ways this is my favorite stage because while it may feel like the magic happens in the exploration phase, it’s in this final phase that the idea really becomes reality.
Cleaning the Design
The polished finishes create dynamic little sparks of light, symbolizing our desire to overcome ourselves and make positive changes in the world.
Placed "Gangwon 2024"
text on the medal front
Added the name of the Youth Olympic Games to the front side of the Medal
Stars/Snowflakes, symbolize both winter and the limitless potential of the youth athletes to shine and achieve greatness.
A sunburst with rays radiating outward, indicates the idea of growing and expanding
A tree is a symbols of strength, individuality and growth and the interconnectedness of everything.
Final Designs
Gangwon 2024
The Winter Youth Olympic Games Gangwon 2024 took place from 19 January to 1 February 2024, with 1,802 athletes from 78 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) taking part in 15 disciplines across 7 sports. Gangwon 2024 drew upon the successful delivery of the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018, and aimed to continue the vision of bringing sport to a new generation of winter athletes.
