It may be a competitive time of year for the world’s best swimmers and kayakers, but 10 teams of data visualization experts are approaching the London 2012 Olympic Games as a golden opportunity for collaboration.

The “graphics consortium” is an informal agreement between 10 design teams from eight countries around the world, from Argentina to Oman*, to pool their Olympic graphics.

The brainchild of Matt Martel, Managing Editor, Presentation for Australia’s The Sydney Morning Herald and The Sun-Herald, the idea is for each participating graphics team to both upload and download editable files via OneHub and DropBox, allowing individual teams to tailor one-another’s contributions to suit their needs, whether by changing the typography or the format, and then cross-publish the graphics in their respective publications, on as many platforms as they wish. The swap is free, honour-system-based, and stipulates only that accreditation be offered to the publication that provides the work.

A February 14 email from Martel to his international counterparts outlines the concept:

“Co-operative sharing of graphics for the Olympics (and maybe later on for major world events) seems to have a bit of momentum. From my understanding you are all up for sharing your Olympics work. That means you will upload some of what you do and take work from others. I believe all the publications involved so far are brilliant at information graphics. It's really exciting company to find myself in.”