This particular set of icons was made exclusively for R-Sport. At the moment we (Contrast Foundry) are working on an extended set of icons covering all the olympic sports and much more. It will be out and available for licensing soon (beta versions available). For more information please contact me via maria@contrastfoundry.com.
Started in the beginning of 2012 this project turned out to be a long-term one.
The R-Sport sports news agency is a part of RIA Novosti and covers all the top football, Olympics, hockey, tennis, basketball and other news in Russia, former Soviet Union and the rest of the world.
The agency was going to be launched in June 2012 and as the work on its identity was in progress I was commissioned to make a small set of pictograms to include them in the project’s brand book. But as the project grew, there came a need to prepare a larger set which could be used in the upcomming London Olympics materials.
Intended use: print (as a part of project’s identity) / web / infographics.
When starting the project, I did a research on what was already done. Next step was sketching the ideas. It was important to connect the design of the icons to the agency’s identity, but I did not want this continuity to be obvious. Another problem was to keep balance between complexity of different sports as some of them needed much more information and space.
From the very beginning the design of particular details changed. I got rid of the sharp angles in the connection points, but I still like this first design.
Final result was a set of 40 icons, all available in three styles (plain, circled and squared), developed into a font for easier use.
sketching helped a lot in shape development
first set of eight icons
final set
an example of use in infographics
London olympics timeline designed by German Shelevoy
Art Director: Ilya Ruderman
Head of department: Olga Parakhina
R-sport logo: German Shelevoy
R-sport brand book: Anton Mizinov
Icons designer: Maria Doreuli
3D graphics: Ignat Petrov
Maria Doreuli 