Logo

The logo of the Deaflympics, designed in 2003, is a positive and powerful symbol of the international deaf-sports community. It ties together several strong elements — sign language, deaf and international cultures, and the ideas of unity and continuity.

• The hand shapes — 'ok', 'good' and 'great' — overlapping in a circle represent the original sign for 'deaflympics'; taken together, they also form the sign for 'united'.
• The centre of the logo stands for the iris of the eye, reflecting the fact that deaf people are visual people who rely on their eyes to communicate.
• The four colours — red, blue, yellow and green — are drawn from the national flags of the world and represent the four regional confederations: the Asia Pacific Deaf Sports Confederation, the European Deaf Sports Organization, the Pan American Deaf Sports Organization and the Confederation of African Deaf Sports.

(The actual Deaflympics emblem is a trademark of the ICSD, so it is not reproduced here; the description above explains what each element of the official logo means.)

Why the logo matters. An emblem is the single visual shorthand an international sports movement uses to be instantly recognised at opening ceremonies, on uniforms and medals, and in broadcast graphics — exactly the role the five interlocking rings play for the Olympic movement, or the three-coloured "agitos" play for the Paralympic movement. The Deaflympics logo does the same job for the deaf-sports community, but its design choices are deliberately drawn from Deaf culture itself rather than borrowed from the hearing world's sporting imagery — the hand shapes are literal signs, not decorative icons, and the iris at the centre makes the point that sight, not sound, is this community's primary channel of communication and competition. …