Tinkerblue

Vancouver Street Banners

Remember the street banners that were on all the lampposts in and around Vancouver?

You can still buy one or a pair for your own memorabilia collection. We have a big pink Sydney 2000 fence wrap and after the Games we bought a pair of Vancouver 2010 street banners, and they will eventually all hang in the hangar.  Can you guess which pair we bought?

 Yep, the set with the airplane on them!

Avaialable from the Flag Shop in Vancouver. The banners were donated by the City of Vancouver. Funds raised from the sale of the Street Banners will benefit the Tradeworks Training Society and the Fab Shop. 

Available in sets or individually, and if you so chose some are available autographed by John Furlong, Kristi Richards, Tom Velisek and Justin Lamoureaux.

Prices start at $34.95 and up. Get them here.

 

All Things Victory Ceremony - medal trays, podiums, uniform, flowers

10 days to go.  10 very short days.  There's not much left to surprise us all with - who will be the final torch bearer, who will perform at the Opening and Closing ceremonies... Today Vancouver 2010 released the details of the podiums, medal trays, flowers and medal bearer uniforms.

© VANOC/COVAN 

The Podiums are inspired by the snow-capped mountains of Vancouver and Whistler. Each one is assembled from over 200 pieces of precision cut wood from BC Forests.  Built by new trained inner city workers at the Rona Vancouver 2010 Fabrication Shop. 23 podiums will be used in 86 Olympic and Paralympic Victory Ceremonies.

© VANOC/COVAN

Ergonomic wooden trays, matching the design of the podiums, have a non slip surface to protect the wavy medals. Both the podiums and the trays were designed by VANOC's late design director Leo Obstbaum and industrial designer James Lee. I really like them both. Beautiful in their simplicity. I'd like one of the trays please.

 © VANOC/COVAN

Athlete bouquets contain green hypercium berries, green spider mums, leatherleaf fern, monkey grass and aspidistra leaves. They're pretty but why aren't there any native BC plants or flowers in the bouquets.

 

Volunteers will carry the medals and flowers on those lovely trays and escort the athletes while wearing their Aritzia produced costumes.  The costumes are in shades of blue to represent the sea to sky palette.

The outdoor uniform is a cocoon parka in hues of blue inspired by the night sky.

The indoor uniform is a handmade coat, each one is unique and hand knit. A silk scarf is embroidered with complementary hues representing the flags of all nations competing at the Games.

The athlete escort uniform features a vintage ski coat in shades of blue, flocked with with the same Aboriginal artwork of an orca and raven found on the medals. 

I'm not really keen on the uniforms, and I assume all the medal volunteers are female, can't see too many men wearing these outfits.  If I had to pick one, it would be the athlete escort uniform.  

Look of the Games and Sponsor Ads

 

You can really see the Look of the Games start to take shape in Vancouver now.  There official street banners are going up, 

 

the scrim on fencing has the Look of the Games...
 

 Susan Gittins Flickr
 

Sponsor ads are starting to show up in the skytrain stations, Royal Canadian Mint at Olympic Village:

 

GE at Vancouver City Centre:

Coca Cola at Granville Street:

 

and Acer at Waterfront:

  
 

We are starting to see buildings in the downtown core being wrapped in Olympic or Canada graphics. RBC Tower on Georgia St - it seems to be taking them a long time to install it.

Samsung has two wraps on the TD building.  

 

As Andrea pointed out, this seems a little weird.  TD is not a sponsor but now they have two Olympic wraps on their building.  The mascot one going up today is right under the TD sign.  Odd.

 

The stairs from the Art Gallery down to GE Plaza with the BC You Gotta Be Here campaign:

 

Samsung Omnia display in Pacific Centre:

  

Vancouver 2010 banners and windows at Birks.  They also have a red bobsleigh in the store, but I wasn't allowed to take a photo.  So you'll have to go see it for yourself.

 

And a couple of non sponsor, Canada themed decorations