The choice of the colour scale was determined by the speciffic visual climate of Munich and its environment, by the tpical colouring of the Bavarian landscape. The palette, which originally had been limited to blue, white and silver, was later complemented by orange, yellow, light green, blue-violet and dark green so that in the end it added up to a scale of baroque gaiety, defining the predominant esthetic atmosphere of these Games and serving in addition as an essential medium of visual information. The colours fulfill the function of visual signals creating transparency and facilitating orientation. Each of them is assiciated with a specific aspect: blue is the official colour of the Games, green is the symbol of the Press and TV, orange is reserved for technology and silver distinguishes the sphere of representation. It was rather by accident than by design that the colours could be arranged so as to approximate the colours of a rainbow. But the Olympic spectrum lacks one colour – red – and this lends it its specific distinction. The Olympic colour scale is lighter, less polychrome than the full spectrum.