Olympic Games | Joachim Roncin: "Paris 2024 represents a series of firsts and we want to show this to the world with this poster”
The Olympic and Paralympic posters in Orsay Museum Ugo Gattoni/Paris 2024
Renowned for his captivating creativity and best known as the author of the iconic phrase "Je Suis Charlie", Joachim Roncin has brought his unique flair and innovative perspective to the artistic direction of the Games. He explains his role as Paris 2024's Design Director.
What is the role of the Games design director ?
Joachim Roncin: It is all about overseeing all the assets of Paris 2024. This means supervising the dialogue with Matthieu Lehanneur on the creation of the torch, as well as overseeing the creation of medals, posters, mascots, the identity of the French Olympic and Paralympic teams... But it's not just about creating, it's also about coordinating with all our partners, including Le Coq Sportif for the clothing designed by Stéphane Ashpool. It's quite a big job and includes everything visual except the ceremony, which is Thomas Jolly's responsibility.
With all these different elements - clothing, emblems, mascots, etc. - is there a consistent message?
Joachim Roncin: There is indeed a specific message. For us, the idea was to work around creativity. That's exactly why I embarked on this adventure: from the very beginning I felt a real desire to create, to use art to tell stories, to show the world that we're clever from an artistic point of view. This appealed to me because usually creativity takes a back seat in terms of importance and is the first to be cut when budgets are tight. Here it was the opposite. There was a desire to communicate something meaningful, not just to create aesthetically pleasing objects. Beauty is subjective, and when you are working on an event as significant as this, you have to justify your efforts. It can't just be about appearances. Take the mascot, for example. It was important to us that it should be a strong French symbol with a rich history, namely the Phrygian cap. We had other suggestions: doves, cats, gargoyles, etc. We felt they lacked substance and meaning.
This focus is at the very core of the poster. From the outset, our work focused on the need to communicate the Paris 2024 project and, above all, sport in the city. It's quite revolutionary: taking the ceremony and the events out of the stadiums and making sure that the city of Paris - arguably the most beautiful in the world - becomes the backdrop for the disciplines. It's extraordinary. These are images that will be the envy of the world, and the poster had to capture all of that.
Was the intention with this poster to break away from a certain minimalist tradition in Olympic and Paralympic posters? Paris 2024 marks a significant turning point in the history of the Games; did the posters need to reflect this?
Joachim Roncin: Absolutely. But rather than minimalism, I'd say it's a departure from an "institutional" aspect. I think there are two main trends in Olympic posters. Firstly, from 1900 to the 1950s - although Mexico 68 was a real turning point - there was a celebration of the athlete. The posters were quite grandiose, proud of the strong man, etc. You can see this in the posters from Paris 1924, which are very much in that vein, with the athlete in the foreground. Then we had this "minimalist" period, where the emblem of the edition was very prominent, something very simple, which highlighted the event more than the athlete. We didn't identify with either. Because Paris 2024 is a series of firsts and we wanted to show that to the world with this poster.
Today, the concept of the poster as such - and I say this as a designer and artistic director - is no longer valid. It's unfortunate to say it, and I'm sad to say it, but the idea of having an immediate, very simple image that can be understood in half a second as you walk past it is no longer valid. We are now overwhelmed by our smartphones, we receive all the information directly, we are constantly bombarded with images. With this in mind, we decided to use a work of art. The official poster had to be a work of art that you could spend hours looking at, studying all the little details. It's a big poster because we wanted to include a lot of things, tell a lot of stories. Of course, we couldn't say everything because of space constraints. Unfortunately, we had to leave out certain places, certain aspects. But there's the expression of each sport on these posters.
And then there's the concept of the diptychs. From the start, we wanted to make sure that the two posters together told the full story of Paris 2024, the Olympic and Paralympic Games. And that's what all our work has been about from the beginning: uniting Olympism and Paralympism. To understand Paris 2024, you have to bring them together.
At a time when we are questioning disposability, single-use and hyper-consumption, is there also a desire to move in this direction and offer something lasting with this poster? Something durable that can be appreciated over time?
Joachim Roncin: That's exactly it. That's the way I think. Today we are overwhelmed, pushed to go faster. This poster is about taking the time to look at things. It's part of the basic concept of creation. I knew Ugo Gattoni worked by hand. And it was very important for us to do this work by hand to show this form of French craftsmanship and know-how. To say that there's a real manual creation, 2,000 hours of drawing, it's not just a formula that we made up for the media, it's true. He started on the 19th of September, he finished on the 19th of January; it was really four months of intense drawing. There's not a single character in this diptych that's similar; they're all different, there's no copy-paste. So the long term is important, not only in the creation - it's very warm, this "lace" aspect - but also in the discovery.
Another departure in this poster is the festive aspect. Was that also a primary intention?
Joachim Roncin: Yes, and it's closely related to Ugo's work. It seemed necessary to have something phantasmagoric and poetic. For me, these posters are visual poetry. We're in quite a difficult time, where everything is very aggressive, we're bombarded with a lot of negative information all the time, and we wanted to convey something very positive with these posters. There's the colours, the light, but there's also something that fuels this festive aspect: the public mixing with the athletes. Everyone is more or less on the same level.
What story did you want to tell with the French team's outfit?
Joachim Roncin: It was a project led by Stéphane Ashpool, known for his Pigalle brand and his colourful basketball court in Pigalle (Duperré, ed.). And Stéphane came with a concept that was very important to him: the mixing of cultures. We said: "Let's express this, let's create almost a gradient”.
Key Figures :
2 000. The number of hours Ugo Gattoni spent drawing by hand on the poster for the Games.
The Olympic and Paralympic posters in Orsay Museum Ugo Gattoni/Paris 2024
Renowned for his captivating creativity and best known as the author of the iconic phrase "Je Suis Charlie", Joachim Roncin has brought his unique flair and innovative perspective to the artistic direction of the Games. He explains his role as Paris 2024's Design Director.
What is the role of the Games design director ?
Joachim Roncin: It is all about overseeing all the assets of Paris 2024. This means supervising the dialogue with Matthieu Lehanneur on the creation of the torch, as well as overseeing the creation of medals, posters, mascots, the identity of the French Olympic and Paralympic teams... But it's not just about creating, it's also about coordinating with all our partners, including Le Coq Sportif for the clothing designed by Stéphane Ashpool. It's quite a big job and includes everything visual except the ceremony, which is Thomas Jolly's responsibility.
With all these different elements - clothing, emblems, mascots, etc. - is there a consistent message?
Joachim Roncin: There is indeed a specific message. For us, the idea was to work around creativity. That's exactly why I embarked on this adventure: from the very beginning I felt a real desire to create, to use art to tell stories, to show the world that we're clever from an artistic point of view. This appealed to me because usually creativity takes a back seat in terms of importance and is the first to be cut when budgets are tight. Here it was the opposite. There was a desire to communicate something meaningful, not just to create aesthetically pleasing objects. Beauty is subjective, and when you are working on an event as significant as this, you have to justify your efforts. It can't just be about appearances. Take the mascot, for example. It was important to us that it should be a strong French symbol with a rich history, namely the Phrygian cap. We had other suggestions: doves, cats, gargoyles, etc. We felt they lacked substance and meaning.
This focus is at the very core of the poster. From the outset, our work focused on the need to communicate the Paris 2024 project and, above all, sport in the city. It's quite revolutionary: taking the ceremony and the events out of the stadiums and making sure that the city of Paris - arguably the most beautiful in the world - becomes the backdrop for the disciplines. It's extraordinary. These are images that will be the envy of the world, and the poster had to capture all of that.
Was the intention with this poster to break away from a certain minimalist tradition in Olympic and Paralympic posters? Paris 2024 marks a significant turning point in the history of the Games; did the posters need to reflect this?
Joachim Roncin: Absolutely. But rather than minimalism, I'd say it's a departure from an "institutional" aspect. I think there are two main trends in Olympic posters. Firstly, from 1900 to the 1950s - although Mexico 68 was a real turning point - there was a celebration of the athlete. The posters were quite grandiose, proud of the strong man, etc. You can see this in the posters from Paris 1924, which are very much in that vein, with the athlete in the foreground. Then we had this "minimalist" period, where the emblem of the edition was very prominent, something very simple, which highlighted the event more than the athlete. We didn't identify with either. Because Paris 2024 is a series of firsts and we wanted to show that to the world with this poster.
Today, the concept of the poster as such - and I say this as a designer and artistic director - is no longer valid. It's unfortunate to say it, and I'm sad to say it, but the idea of having an immediate, very simple image that can be understood in half a second as you walk past it is no longer valid. We are now overwhelmed by our smartphones, we receive all the information directly, we are constantly bombarded with images. With this in mind, we decided to use a work of art. The official poster had to be a work of art that you could spend hours looking at, studying all the little details. It's a big poster because we wanted to include a lot of things, tell a lot of stories. Of course, we couldn't say everything because of space constraints. Unfortunately, we had to leave out certain places, certain aspects. But there's the expression of each sport on these posters.
And then there's the concept of the diptychs. From the start, we wanted to make sure that the two posters together told the full story of Paris 2024, the Olympic and Paralympic Games. And that's what all our work has been about from the beginning: uniting Olympism and Paralympism. To understand Paris 2024, you have to bring them together.
At a time when we are questioning disposability, single-use and hyper-consumption, is there also a desire to move in this direction and offer something lasting with this poster? Something durable that can be appreciated over time?
Joachim Roncin: That's exactly it. That's the way I think. Today we are overwhelmed, pushed to go faster. This poster is about taking the time to look at things. It's part of the basic concept of creation. I knew Ugo Gattoni worked by hand. And it was very important for us to do this work by hand to show this form of French craftsmanship and know-how. To say that there's a real manual creation, 2,000 hours of drawing, it's not just a formula that we made up for the media, it's true. He started on the 19th of September, he finished on the 19th of January; it was really four months of intense drawing. There's not a single character in this diptych that's similar; they're all different, there's no copy-paste. So the long term is important, not only in the creation - it's very warm, this "lace" aspect - but also in the discovery.
Another departure in this poster is the festive aspect. Was that also a primary intention?
Joachim Roncin: Yes, and it's closely related to Ugo's work. It seemed necessary to have something phantasmagoric and poetic. For me, these posters are visual poetry. We're in quite a difficult time, where everything is very aggressive, we're bombarded with a lot of negative information all the time, and we wanted to convey something very positive with these posters. There's the colours, the light, but there's also something that fuels this festive aspect: the public mixing with the athletes. Everyone is more or less on the same level.
What story did you want to tell with the French team's outfit?
Joachim Roncin: It was a project led by Stéphane Ashpool, known for his Pigalle brand and his colourful basketball court in Pigalle (Duperré, ed.). And Stéphane came with a concept that was very important to him: the mixing of cultures. We said: "Let's express this, let's create almost a gradient”.
Key Figures :
2 000. The number of hours Ugo Gattoni spent drawing by hand on the poster for the Games.