As part of its successful attempt to win the United States Olympic Committee bid to host the 2024 Olympics, Boston has gotten itself a new logo. It's clean, inoffensive, and not much to write home about, except for one thing: the mysterious beacon symbol to the left of Boston 2024.
At first glance, it seems pretty straightforward. You've got Boston 2024 written in clean but bland sans-serif type on the right side, and a 21st-century update to a laurel wreath on the other. The Boston 2024 Executive Committee calls it a beacon, and it will designed by Hill Holiday, a Boston design and advertising firm.
So far so good. But then things get weird. Check out how the executive committee turned the beacon into a weird, glowing hologram in this official promo video. It looks like some sort of weird, cubist, virtual reality frisbee, and everyone has one—even Paul Revere!
The beacon design is so weird, Under Consideration's Armin Vit said about it: " I'm mostly confused by what kind of artifact it's supposed to be in the epically epic epic-some video below. It looks like something the Autobots fight over with the Decepticon."
Me, though? I'm not confused about the beacon at all. In fact, I think it's pretty obvious what it's supposed to be.
That's right! It's an identity disc from Tron!
I got to say, I'm pumped. As a Bostonian myself, I was a little concerned when I heard that my home city might play host to the expensive, bloated, and (to my mind) hopelessly dull Olympic Games. But if the 2024 Olympics is going to have disc wars and light cycles as events? Sign me up. The MCP can't possibly do a worse job running the Olympics than the IOC.
[via Under Consideration]