Tokyo 2020; Mascot Design Competition Launched

The Tokyo 2020 Mascot Design Competition was launched earlier this week. You can read the press release by Tokyo2020 below. Or visit this page for more information.

Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Mascot Design Competition Now Open to Public!
1 August 2017

The Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Tokyo 2020) today launched a competition inviting all residents of Japan to submit their own design proposals for the Olympic and Paralympic mascots. If you’re living in Japan, from today until Monday 14 August you can design your own set of mascots and submit these via the Tokyo 2020 website. So it’s time to let those creative juices flow and get designing – yours could be the winner!

To mark the competition’s kick-off, Tokyo 2020 held a ceremony at Kuramae Elementary School in Asakusabashi in Tokyo today that was attended by over 200 excited schoolchildren. At the event, four-time Olympian Ai Sugiyama and three-time Paralympian Aki Taguchi mingled with the children and shared their stories and experiences of being athletes and competing at the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

In May this year, Tokyo 2020 announced a cool new method they will use to select the winner of the design competition. A Tokyo 2020 mascot review panel will select a shortlist from the submitted design sets by the beginning of December, and schoolchildren at every elementary school across the country, including international schools, will be able to cast their vote and select their preferred set of designs. Tokyo 2020 will select the design set which attracts the largest number of classroom votes and announce the winner in March 2018. It will be a great way to directly involve young people in the Games’ preparations!

At today’s event, children counted down to noon, and as chairperson of the Mascot Selection Panel Ryohei Miyata beat a ceremonial gong, they cheered the announcement that the design entry website was now open. Two cheerleading squads performed in front of the schoolchildren and guests to celebrate the occasion.

Miyata commented, “Japanese mascots are loved by many people around the world. You and your classmates will select the best mascots for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic games. We are going to ask all elementary school children in Japan to play this important role. We hope many people will enter this competition starting today”

A “creative brief” with a comprehensive set of design guidelines and criteria is available for applicants for download here:

Entry requirement (PDF: 1.1 MB)