Project 2: Olympic Bid

5 min readFeb 24, 2021

Corporate ID | Spring 2021

This is the start of my Corp ID Project 2 story. Yolo.

The Research:

Philadelphia/Pennsylvania

The city/state/country that was chosen for me was Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States for the Summer Olympics.

Philadelphia, occasionally referred to by the nickname of Philly, is the largest city in Pennsylvania and was founded in 1682 by William Penn. It it home to Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and the Rocky statue.

In 1681, Charles II granted William Penn a charter after Penn had petitioned for land in the new world as part of a deal to forgive the crown’s debt to his late father due to the crown owing Penn’s late father, Admiral Sir William Penn, for using his own wealth to feed and outfit the British Navy.

Penn arrived in October 1682. In honor of his father, the land was called Pennsylvania, or “Penn’s Woods.”

As Philadelphia — which meant the city of brotherly love — was originally settled by Native Americans, Penn, being a Quaker, decided to negotiate a peace treaty and that same peace treaty established a tradition of tolerance and human rights, which is why tension grew when a ship carrying enslaved Africans docked there.

In 1774, the Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia and in 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed and read at Independence Hall.

The Olympics

The Olympic games originated in Ancient Greece, around 3000 years ago and the first modern Olympics was held in Athens in 1896 and features 280 participants from thirteen nations, who competed in forty-three events. Starting after 1992, the Olympic Games are held every four years and alternate between Summer and Winter every two years out of that four-year period.

The reasoning behind why the Olympic Games are held every four years is to show respect to the origins of the Olympic Games, which also held the games every four years. Though a fun fact is that the Summer and Winter Olympics used to be held the same year every four years.

The man behind the first modern Olympic was Baron Pierre de Coubertin. He wanted to revive the Olympic Games because of a desire to “help build a peaceful and better world by educating young people through sport” (Which is why he established the International Olympic Committee). Ironically, even though he openly opposed women participating in elite track and field events throughout his life, under his presidency the participation of women in the Olympic Games grew “six-fold.”

(sources: https://www.history.com/topics/us-states/philadelphia-pennsylvania | http://statemuseumpa.org/charter-pennsylvania-birth-certificate/ |https://www.history.com/topics/sports/olympic-games | https://www.olympic.org/pierre-de-coubertin | https://www.olympic.org/faq/history-and-origin-of-the-games | https://www.olympic.org/faq/history-and-origin-of-the-games/why-are-the-olympic-games-held-every-four-years)