奥运五环是谁发明的？
Who Made the Olympic Rings?

Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympics, was a French aristocrat with an enormous waxed mustache that hung on his face like a rogue accent mark. In 1914, the baron announced that he had designed a symbol for the 20th anniversary of the Games. “This, truly, is an international emblem,” he wrote of the five rings, linked together to suggest the unity of humankind. But where did the baron get his idea for the design? In 1984, a sports historian named Robert Barney was exploring a Greek archaeological site when he leaned over to tie his shoe and noticed a symbol etched into a weather-beaten stone: five linked rings. His heart fluttered. As it happened, Barney specialized in the history of the Olympics, and he believed that he had just stumbled across a breakthrough: Had Baron Coubertin — decades before — seen this same etching? Had it been his inspiration?

皮埃尔·德·顾拜旦男爵(Baron Pierre de Coubertin)是现代奥林匹克运动会的创始人。他是一位法国贵族，脸上留着浓密的、好像上过蜡似的小胡子，看起来像是个重音符号。1914年，这位男爵宣布他为纪念现代奥林匹克运动会20周年设计了一个标志。“这真的可以称得上是一个国际性的标志，”他描述说，这个标志以五个圆环为素材，相套连成一体，象征着人类团结。那么，男爵的灵感是从哪里获得的呢？1984年，体育历史学家罗伯特·巴尼(Robert Barney)正在勘察一处希腊考古遗迹，当他俯身系鞋带时，注意到一块已经风化的石头上蚀刻着五个相连的圆环。这个发现让他的心脏砰砰直跳。巴尼专门研究奥林匹克运动史，他相信自己刚刚无意间发现了一个突破点：几十年前，顾拜旦是否也见过同样的图案？是否就是它带给他灵感？

Actually, it had not. The “ancient” carving, which fooled historians before, turned out to be a relic of Nazi filmmakers. When Leni Riefenstahl passed through Greece to document the torch ceremony for the 1936 Olympic Games, she stage-crafted a mythic backdrop. Someone — perhaps a set designer — hacked that stone into an ersatz relic of antiquity. It was pure Goebbels-style kitsch: the Nazis would have liked us to believe that the Olympic symbol emerged from the mists of Delphi.

事实并非如此。这块糊弄了历史学家的“古老的”石刻，实际上是位纳粹制片人留下的。当年雷妮·瑞芬舒丹(Leni Riefenstahl)要录制1936年的奥林匹克运动会火炬仪式，中途路过希腊，她在这里搭建了一个神秘的舞台背景。有人——也许是个布景设计师，雕刻了这块石头，来冒充古迹。这块石头纯粹是戈培尔式的玩意儿。纳粹本打算迷惑我们，让我们以为奥运五环标志起源于希腊古城特尔斐(Delphi)。

In fact, the design simply burst forth from the imagination of a baron with effulgent facial hair. Baron Coubertin believed in sport as a kind of religion “with its own church, dogmas and ritual.” And when he cast about for a logo, he may have been inspired by — of all things — an advertisement for Dunlop tires. The baron had been perusing a magazine illustrated with five bicycle tires at around the same time that he invented his design, according to the historian Karl Lennantz.

事实上，五环设计是留着考究胡子的顾拜旦男爵灵光一现的想法。顾拜旦相信体育是一种“有着它自己的教堂、信条和仪式的信仰。”据历史学家卡尔·里南兹(Karl Lennantz)介绍说，在顾拜旦考虑设计标志时，最有可能带给他启发的，应该是当时的一则邓禄普(Dunlop)轮胎广告。

The Olympic rings were inaugurated in June 1914, the same month that a bullet felled an archduke and sent the world tumbling into war. It has since become one of the most-recognized logos in the world and a symbol for peace.

奥运五环诞生于1914年6月，同月一位皇位继承人被枪杀（指奥匈帝国皇位继承人斐迪南——译注），世界就此卷入战争中。此后，奥运五环成了全世界辨识度最高的标志之一，也成为和平的象征。

SHE SEES LOGOS

她眼中的奥运标志

Sarah Hyndman, a graphic designer in London, started her Olympic-logo-a-day project in July 2011. You can see her interpretations of the Olympic symbol at olympiclogoaday.com.

萨拉·赫德曼(Sarah Hyndman)是伦敦的一位平面设计师，在2011年7月发起了“奥运一天一标志”(Olympic-logo-a-day)的设计项目。她对奥运标志的阐释详见olympiclogoaday.com。

How did you start this project? Last July I was playing with things on my desk, and I noticed that they made an Olympic- ring logo. The next day, our office had a meeting, and I put some doilies out for the cups and ended up arranging them so that they formed the Olympic logo. My friends found it a fun thing to do. If we were having dinner, we would move around glasses and cups and bracelets and make the Olympic rings.

你是怎么开始这个项目的？去年七月的一天，我在随手把玩桌子上的东西，结果发现自己无意中把它们拼成了奥运五环的标志。第二天开会，我将几个杯垫取了下来，连在一起，拼成奥运五环的标志。朋友们发现这么做很好玩。在一起吃饭时，我们还会把眼镜、杯子和手镯拼成奥运五环的标志。

What is the most unusual object you’ve made into an Olympic logo? I suppose it would be the prawns.

你拼奥运五环用过的最特别的东西是什么？我想，是对虾吧。

What have you learned about design from this project? I often explain to clients that a really strong brand or logo can have a greater life span than just existing in its two-dimensional format. My project shows that the Olympic rings is a great logo because it can withstand being translated again and again.

从这个项目中，关于设计，你学到了什么呢？我常常向客户解释说，一个真正强大的品牌或商标拥有比它本身的二维设计更宽广的生命内涵。我的项目可以证明，奥运五环是一个伟大的标志，因为它能经得起一遍又一遍的阐释。

You’re about to design your last logo in this yearlong project. You must be relieved. I’m going to miss the project, actually. It’s become my daily ritual.

你即将设计这个一年项目的最后一个标志，感觉如释重负吧。 我真的会想念这个项目的。它已经成为我每天都要做的仪式了。

本文最初发表于2012年7月15日

翻译：修国芳