As a companion to the evergreen Olympic archery pictograms piece I published a few years ago and recently updated to include the Tokyo 2020 series, I found this awesome blog post by Maraid Design who has found some wonderful matchbox designs from the 60s and 70s Games.

The stylised archer (above) is derived from the full set of pictograms designed by Nikolai Belkov, a graduate of the Mukhina Arts School in Leningrad. However, I’m not sure who came up with the chap below, who has a touch of the Egyptian warrior about him, with a decidedly up-the-revolution worker’s cap on top. 

See the full set here. I particularly love the judo one, apparently unique amongst Olympic pictographic depictions in that it doesn’t show two fighters engaged in combat. 

The Olympics aren’t the only time archery has appeared on matchboxes, as these covetable charmers from Finland and Poland, prove:

If you’re into this kind of thing, you might enjoy my post about the Olympic Museum.