# Mexico 68 Olympic & Metro Identity

> The graphic programme of the 1968 Mexico City Olympics and the city's first Metro line. One optical device, parallel lines echoing outward from the '68' and the Olympic rings, was extended into an alphabet and spread over posters, stamps, uniforms, pavements and street lights. Lance Wyman and Eduardo Terrazas built it with Huichol artists, joining Op Art to Indigenous line-work, and added colour-coded venues and pictograms that need no Spanish to read.

- Period: 1966–1970
- Where: Latin America & Caribbean
- Origin: Mexico City: design office of the Organising Committee of the XIX Olympiad (chaired by Pedro Ramírez Vázquez) and the Sistema de Transporte Colectivo Metro
- Branch: Rational modernism
- Also known as: México 68, Mexico 68 graphic programme, Mexico City Metro pictograms
- Page: https://stylogeny.com/styles/mexico-68/

## Use it with care

The line device was developed with Huichol (Wixárika) artists, whose yarn and bead tablas (nierika) carry religious meaning tied to the peyote pilgrimage, the deer and maize. Borrow the line method, not Wixárika iconography; for anything using their motifs, commission and credit Wixárika artists. The identity is also bound up with the Tlatelolco massacre of 2 October 1968, ten days before the Games, after which students turned the Olympic graphics against the state, so reuse it knowingly.

## How it works

- Generate the whole identity from one device: concentric parallel lines that echo outward from the letterforms.
- Extend the device into a complete display alphabet and apply it at every scale, from stamps and tickets to pavements and balloons.
- Code venues, routes and Metro lines by saturated colour (Mexican pink, orange, turquoise, yellow) so colour does the wayfinding.
- Give every sport, cultural event and station its own pictogram, drawn from the action or from the place's history, so people can navigate without reading.
- Root a modern, systematic programme in local Indigenous and pre-Hispanic sources rather than in neutral corporate form.

## Its design choices

Defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

### Layout & composition
- [Radial & concentric](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/radial-and-concentric/) (defining)
- [Central symmetry](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/central-symmetry/) (characteristic)
- [Isolated object](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/isolated-object/) (characteristic)
- [Modular grid](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/modular-grid/) (occasional)
- [All-over field](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/all-over-field/) (occasional)

### Space & hierarchy
- [Repetition & rhythm](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/repetition-and-rhythm/) (defining)
- [Single focal point](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/single-focal-point/) (characteristic)
- [Layered information](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/layered-information/) (occasional)

### Typography
- [Ornamented display](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/ornamented-display/) (defining)
- [Type as image](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/type-as-image/) (characteristic)
- [All caps](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/all-caps/) (characteristic)
- [Geometric sans](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/geometric-sans/) (characteristic)

### Colour
- [Flat fields](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat-fields/) (characteristic)
- [Full polychrome](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/full-polychrome/) (characteristic)
- [Monochrome](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/monochrome/) (characteristic)
- [Light ground](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/light-ground/) (characteristic)
- [Complementary clash](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/complementary-clash/) (occasional)

### Form & shape
- [Optical pattern](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/optical-pattern/) (defining)
- [Pictogram](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/pictogram/) (defining)
- [Geometric primitives](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/geometric-primitives/) (characteristic)

### Surface & texture
- [Flat](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat/) (characteristic)

### Ornament
- [Emblems & badges](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/emblems-and-badges/) (characteristic)
- [Folk & sacred symbols](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/folk-and-sacred-symbols/) (occasional)

### Imagery
- [Icons & pictograms](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/icons-and-pictograms/) (defining)
- [Pattern & repeat](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/pattern-and-repeat/) (characteristic)
- [Diagram & data](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/diagram-and-data/) (occasional)

### Medium & production
- [Architecture & signage](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/architecture-and-signage/) (defining)
- [Offset printing](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/offset-printing/) (characteristic)
- [Textile & craft](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/textile-and-craft/) (occasional)

### Tone & intent
- [Playful & witty](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/playful-and-witty/) (characteristic)
- [Utopian & idealistic](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/utopian-and-idealistic/) (characteristic)
- [Authoritative & institutional](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/authoritative-and-institutional/) (characteristic)
- [Rational & objective](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rational-and-objective/) (occasional)
- [Technological & futurist](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/technological-and-futurist/) (occasional)

Avoids: Naturalistic depiction, Painterly illustration, Painterly brushwork, Script, Collage & layering, Floral & vegetal, Skeuomorphic material

Palette: #e4007c, #f39200, #00a19a, #ffd200, #111111, #ffffff

Typefaces: Mexico 68 multiline display alphabet (Lance Wyman & Eduardo Terrazas), Tipo Metro (Lance Wyman, 1969)

Known for: Lance Wyman (Mexico 68 logotype and graphic programme; Mexico City Metro wayfinding and Tipo Metro, 1969); Eduardo Terrazas (extension of the logotype into a multiline alphabet; integral design); Pedro Ramírez Vázquez (architect, chair of the Organising Committee); Huichol artists including Pedro de Haro, whose yarn-and-resin tablas gave the first logotype drafts; Mexico City Metro station pictograms, e.g. the butterfly for Juanacatlán, 'place of butterflies' (1969); Poster, Mexico Olympics 1968 (Cooper Hewitt, 1987-24-20)

## Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

- Grew out of: [Corporate Identity Modernism](https://stylogeny.com/styles/corporate-modernism.md) (1955–1990)
- Influenced by: [Op Art Graphics](https://stylogeny.com/styles/op-art.md) (1960–1975)
- Influenced by: [Isotype Pictorial Statistics](https://stylogeny.com/styles/isotype.md) (1925–1971)
- Alike in its design choices: [Indian Institutional Modernism (NID)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/indian-modernism.md) (1961–1990), 59% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Kamon (Japanese Family Crests)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/kamon.md) (c. 1100–present), 58% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [European Heraldry](https://stylogeny.com/styles/european-heraldry.md) (c. 1140–present), 56% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Techno-Futurist Graphics](https://stylogeny.com/styles/techno-futurism.md) (1986–2002), 56% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Casablanca School Graphic Modernism](https://stylogeny.com/styles/casablanca-school.md) (1962–1987), 55% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Chinese Paper-Cut (Jianzhi)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/chinese-paper-cut.md) (c. 500–present), 54% alike

## Real works

- [Juegos de la XIX Olimpiada Octubre 12-27, Mexico '68](https://www.moma.org/collection/works/172050): Department of Publications and Urban Design, Organizing Committee of the XIX Olympiad; Lance Wyman, 1968, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (356.2014.44)
- [Mexico 68](https://www.moma.org/collection/works/5545): Eduardo Terrazas and Lance Wyman, 1967, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (179.1968)
- [Mexico City 1968 Olympics general events](https://www.moma.org/collection/works/172065): Lance Wyman (Organizing Committee of the XIX Olympiad), c. 1968, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (404.2014.14)
- [Olympic banners on the Auditorio Nacional, gymnastics venue of the 1968 Games](https://fortepan.hu/en/photos/?id=73817): Organising Committee of the XIX Olympiad (banners); photograph donated to Fortepan by Éva Romák, 1968, Fortepan photo archive, Budapest (ID 73817)

## Sources

- https://eyemagazine.com/feature/article/this-is-1968-this-is-mexico
- https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2016/08/16/1968-logo-gold/
- https://peoplesgdarchive.org/item/18240/mexico-city-metro-wayfinding-system
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Wyman
- Eye magazine, 'This is 1968 … this is Mexico' (interviews; Pedro de Haro, Huichol community leader, and the tablas): https://eyemagazine.com/feature/article/this-is-1968-this-is-mexico

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From Stylogeny (https://stylogeny.com/), an atlas of graphic-design styles by Van Riel Online Services. How it is made: https://stylogeny.com/about/. Cite as: Stylogeny, “Mexico 68 Olympic & Metro Identity”, https://stylogeny.com/styles/mexico-68/