Mexico 1968.

01. Mexico 68 signage | Photographer: John Dominis, 1967
School children playing on Olympic logo

02. Mexico City Building Facade | Photographer: John Dominis, 1968

03. Mexico City La Merced Market | Photographer: John Dominis, 1968
Trained canary speaking into telephone

04. Opening Ceremonies | Photographer: Art Rickerby, 1968

Images of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico via the LIFE Historic Photo Archive hosted by Google. (Launch point here.) The games identity system was created by well known American designer Lance Wyman. Some back story to the system per Mr. Wyman… “Graphic design became an important visual ambassador for the 1968 Mexico Olympic Games, It was the first time the games were hosted by a Latin American nation. In planning for the games, Mexico, an emerging third world nation, could not afford to make the extensive architectural statement made in Tokyo four years earlier. Graphic design contributed to the ambiance of the Mexican games and helped to make a meaningful visual impact for fewer pesos.” (via the unofficial Olympic Museum) Read a terrific article by Wyman on way-finding systems and see more of the Mexico 68 identity at Webesteem Magazine.

Unfortunately, there is a dark side to this xixth Olympiad just 10 days prior:

“Mexico’s tragedy unfolded on the night of October 2, 1968, when a student demonstration ended in a storm of bullets in La Plaza de las Tres Culturas at Tlatelolco, Mexico City. The extent of the violence stunned the country. When the shooting stopped, hundreds of people lay dead or wounded, as Army and police forces seized surviving protesters and dragged them away. Although months of nation-wide student strikes had prompted an increasingly hard-line response from the Diaz Ordaz regime, no one was prepared for the bloodbath that Tlatelolco became. More shocking still was the cover-up that kicked in as soon as the smoke cleared. Eye-witnesses to the killings pointed to the President’s “security” forces, who entered the plaza bristling with weapons, backed by armored vehicles. But the government pointed back, claiming that extremists and Communist agitators had initiated the violence. Who was responsible for Tlatelolco? The Mexican people have been demanding an answer ever since.

Thirty years later, the Tlatelolco massacre has grown large in Mexican memory, and lingers still. It is Mexico’s Tiananmen Square, Mexico’s Kent State: when the pact between the government and the people began to come apart and Mexico’s extended political crisis began.” —Kate Doyle, 1998

Tlatelolco Massacre: Declassified U.S. Documents
on Mexico and the Events of 1968

“Government sources originally reported that four people had been killed and 20 wounded, while eyewitnesses described the bodies of hundreds of young people being trucked away. Thousands of students were beaten and jailed, and many disappeared. Forty years later, the final death toll remains a mystery, but documents recently released by the U.S. and Mexican governments give a better picture of what may have triggered the massacre. Those documents suggest that snipers posted by the military fired on fellow troops, provoking them to open fire on the students.” —NPR, 2008

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