88 PRODUCT DESIGN


‘Design and sport have always interacted and fed into one another. Design plays a key role in the history of sport and increases athletic capacities. Designers draw on materials, sports ergonomics and aesthetics to support athletes in their quest for increasingly outstanding sporting performances.’ So said curator Konstantin Grcic at the


Musée du Luxembourg in Paris, where he organised an exhibition on the future of design and sport to mark the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Part of the Olympiade Culturelle programme, Match explored the role of design in the progress of sport, the ties forged between these two fi elds, as well as setting the agenda for future potential developments. T e exhibition also looked at how the sporting world has always inspired top designers – and vice-versa – in sectors including the automotive and ready-to-wear industries. The exhibition was marked by a series


of other events, demonstrations, discussion groups and workshops, all designed to encourage young people to participate in sport and to consider entering the design profession. The design of the exhibition was exceptional, the graphics striking and memorable and, if the children that were so engrossed in it all when I visited were anything to go by, it demonstrated how creativity really can foster potential talent.


Images Match explained how the design of a saddle could complement the achievement of a show jumper, how streamlining a motorbike enhanced performance, and how a space agency collaborated on the design of swimwear


At a time when British politicians and


parts of the media were consumed with the idea as to whether the England football shirt was potentially part of some woke conspiracy when Nike modifi ed the fl ag of Saint George, and politicians and the press in Germany argued as to whether the typographer at Adidas had created a numerical system that the extreme right might use to replicate the lightning logo used by the SS, it was good to fi nd something that explained how design had been used to increase safety in Formula One racing cars; how the design of everything from golf balls to basketballs to rugby balls to balls designed for the partially sighted might produce better results; how the design of a saddle could complement the achievement of a show jumper; how streamlining a motorbike enhanced performance; how a space agency collaborated on the design of swimwear; how the first sports bra came into existence; how a Paralympic rugby wheelchair worked; how you could home- build a racing bike from bamboo; how sports pictograms have developed; how the Refugee Nation fl ag came into being in 2016, and the design of stadiums has changed; how all these things and hundreds more had developed over the years and how things might progress in the future – the list was


The exhibition looked at how the sporting world has


always inspired top designers – and vice-versa – in sectors including the automotive and ready-to-wear industries


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