Around 1980 there was an explosion of creativity in the design offices and factories in Tallinn, Estonia. The Olympics were coming to town, and merchandise was needed.
In the modern era, Olympic design is a tightly controlled affair, with everything from colours and fonts to mascots strictly delineated and controlled, produced by a centralised design team and carefully overseen by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Almost all Games have outlier events in other places apart from the host city, but the outlier town or city doesn’t get to stamp their own identity on it – with one exception. The Moscow Olympics of 1980 were to be different.
Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, would play a small but ultimately transformative role in the event. A city on the edge of the Gulf of Finland, it was chosen to host the sailing competition, having previously hosted other sailing regattas. Estonia at the time was under
