The 2016 Summer Olympics Games are right around the corner. Designing the look and feel for the Olympics is a massive undertaking that takes years, so it’s no surprise that planning is well under way in Tokyo for when they host in 2020. Step one is to decide on a logo, which will inform the rest of the branding. The initial iteration was scrapped after a Belgian designer claimed it was a copy of his logo for the Theatre de Liege (read this article to compare both and see if you agree). Four new designs have been shortlisted and are now up for opinions before the final decision is made on April 25th. Here at Forum One, it was a raging debate involving dragons, bath poofs, and wreaths, but overall opinions were split between options B and D. Which one would you like to see win?

We also debated this article from Jonas Downey about “messy” interfaces. He makes an interesting point that some of the interfaces that we use frequently like Facebook (and Photoshop, if you’re into that) aren’t exactly clean and simple like a lot of the design that’s lauded at the moment. However, calling out Craigslist was an…interesting choice. Yes, it does the job that it’s intended to do, but it’s a definite candidate for some design love. We can see some quick wins with typography and spacing tweaks that could make the interface a little less harsh to the eyes.

The Creative team here at Forum One has recently started using InVision as a prototyping tool. For a recent project, we not only used InVision during client presentations, we also built out a web style guide using Boards, and the client used our prototypes to gather feedback from their team. We can’t share that work just yet, but keep an eye out on our blog over the coming months for more details! Overall, we’ve been really impressed with the changes that the tool has gone through over the last year, and are excited to see how the recent acquisition of Macaw helps the tool evolve even more.

And finally…have you ever wondered how marbles are made? It’s fascinating!