On 23 September 1993, Sydney won its bid to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games for the year 2000. This victory immediately set in motion the development of an entire mood and image for the coming Games. Artists, designers, writers, historians, sponsors, officials for the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games and even the general public assisted with this image making. The result was a youthful yet often nostalgic view of the character of Australia, including its beaches, suburbs, people, humour, Indigenous heritage and multicultural society. It also reflected Australia's ingenuity and innovation in design.

The Sydney 2000 Games, comprising both Olympic and Paralympic events, took place from 15 September to 29 October 2000. In 2001, the New South Wales (NSW) State Government formally transferred a collection of around 700 objects from the Sydney Olympic and Paralympic Games to the Powerhouse Museum. The Powerhouse retained 614, with the rest being distributed to cultural institutions around Australia.

This collection is drawn - not from athletes, sports bodies or sports equipment manufacturers - but from the work of the bodies specially set up by the NSW Government to manage the Games: the Olympic Coordination Authority (OCA), the Olympic Roads and Transport Authority (ORTA), the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) and the Sydney Paralympic Organising Committee (SPOC). The material produced for this short period is a rich record of the people, ideas and programs that contributed to the success of the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The collection categories

• Broadcasting
• Games Force 2000 (volunteers)
• Green Games 2000
• Look and image
• Opening and closing ceremonies
• Other
• Pins, coins, medals and stamps
• Sport
• Torch relay
• Transport

This website documents the Sydney 2000 Games, providing information in the following ways:

• Object data with at least one image of each object in the Sydney 2000 Games Collection.
  
• Edited audio interviews and transcripts of interviews with Mark Armstrong (Blue Sky Design, about design of the Torch), Jonathan Nolan (Program Manager, Image, SOCOG, about the look and image of the Games), David Atkins (Artistic Director, Opening Ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games), Jenny Kee (designer of costumes for the Opening Ceremony) and Wojtek Pietranik (designer of the victory medals).
  
• Five design education modules (case studies) of particular interest to tertiary design students, related to the development of the look and image of the Games, the Olympic Torch, Opening Ceremony costume design, victory medals design, and the green Games.
  
• Four 360° zoomable panoramas that provide insight into aspects of the design of the Games' three of studios/spaces (of Blue Sky Design, Jenny Kee and Wojtek Pietranik) where Olympic design work was undertaken, and one of a collage of the Look and image guidelines' book pages.