NBC Sports has unveiled its logo for the 2026 Winter Olympics, a design that continues the network's trend of incorporating stylized border elements and distinctive wordmarks. The logo's core element is a snowflake created from two mirrored components, featuring curves and shapes that simplify the fractal patterns of real snowflakes. This snowflake frame elegantly surrounds the NBC peacock, the year "2026," the Olympic rings, and the "Milan Cortina" wordmark, which extends beyond the snowflake due to intentional gaps on each side.
The snowflake's design is relatively simple, bearing visual similarities to traditional Italian hand-painted tiles and ceramics. The outermost points subtly echo the Italian fleur-de-lis (giglio bottonato), a symbol rich in Italian cultural and historical significance. The muted blue-gray color palette, while perhaps not typically associated with bold Italian design, is a deliberate choice. It enhances the snowflake's readability and prevents visual competition with the vibrant colors of the peacock, rings, and wordmark.
The "Milan Cortina" wordmark is set in a distinctive sans-serif typeface, blending sharp angles with softer curves and variable stroke widths for a sleek, modern aesthetic. NBC has subtly modified the lower horizontal line of the "L" to integrate it with the "A," minimizing negative space. The "R" is another distinctive feature, with an extended top stroke that curves dramatically southeastward without reconnecting to the vertical stem.
The "2026" year marker uses a geometric sans-serif font, similar to the one used in the Paris 2024 logo, but with unique features. The "2"s are more rounded and exaggerated, and their horizontal baselines don't extend the full width of the glyph. The "6" also features a prominent curve, creating a higher x-height which makes the top appear slightly smaller. The contrasting proportions of the "2"s and "6" contribute to the overall visual interest.
The Milan Cortina logo clearly follows the design language of NBC's Paris 2024 logo, both incorporating diamond-like wraparound elements and stylized wordmarks. For Paris, NBC also produced an alternate logo featuring only the wordmark, year, peacock, and rings.
NBC's Beijing 2022 logo featured a bold wordmark and snowy mountain imagery, a common theme in winter games logo design. While the 2026 logo doesn't directly depict mountains, the snowflake points could arguably be interpreted as stylized peaks.
It's crucial to remember that this logo is an NBC creation, designed for use on NBCUniversal platforms as the U.S. English-language rights holder. Other broadcasters holding rights may create their own logos. The organizing committee for the 2026 Winter Olympics has already released its own logo, which will likely appear in venues and on printed materials.