Ryo Nakagawa, Creative Director, designed WCH Tokyo 25 logo (© Uta Mukuo)
Originally written on 27 Nov 2024
Ryo Nakagawa, Designer – “SUGOI (Fantastic)” that will become a common language around the world.
The World Athletics Championships will be held in Tokyo for the first time in 34 years since 1991.
Ryo Nakagawa designed the logo that symbolizes the tournament.
The logo was selected from among 368 entries through a public submission.
Full of elegance and dynamism with TYO – the city code for Tokyo as a motif.
And the traditional beauty of Japan.
Nakagawa’s passion for the logo, as he loves sports and design.
And what is the “beauty” that he has built up in his career.
Create his own design even within a fixed frame.
―Your logo has been chosen as the logo for the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25. Please tell me honestly how you felt when you heard the news.
Nakagawa I was really happy. In competitions and public submissions like this one, no matter how good I think my work is, I have no idea whether my logo will be selected or not. The difficult part is that I can’t go to the screening site and explain it myself, and I don’t know what kind of people will choose and what criteria they will use. There are various types of designers, and some people are highly sensitive and create intuitively. However, I’m the type of person who first analyzes the design before starting, and organizes information about what is required and what criteria should be used when designing. I am the type of person who place importance on verbal sharing between the purchaser and the creator, and design while coordinating words so that both parties can face the work from the same position, so in that sense, competitions and public submissions are difficult for me. That is why I was really happy when I received the call that I had been selected.
―What regulations did you follow when creating the logo?
Nakagawa That is the interesting part. In 2019, when the International Association of Athletics Federations changed its name to “World Athletics” , the logo was redesigned. Accordingly, it has been decided that all subsequent tournaments sponsored by World Athletics will use the outer frame of the logo, in other words, the fan shape. This time it was the same, and the template was to use the fan shape for the outer frame and the words “WORLD ATHLETICS CHAMPIONSHIPS”, and the requirement was to design the inside of the fan shape and the words “TOKYO 25”. In general logo competitions, the design is often free, so it is very rare to have a rule like this. In addition to that, other specific things we were looking for in the logo were “Tokyo-ness” and “the dynamism of sports”.
Read more Move to the website of TOKYO FORWARD 2025 (External link). ©TMG
photographs by Uta Mukuo