Olympic logo furore continues
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Sarah Woods and Mike Exon
The design world has been rocked by yesterday’s launch of the Wolff Olins-designed London 2012 branding, which provoked a wave of immediate, negative and ubiquitously fierce criticism.
A petition to call for the design of a new logo, or to use the Candidate City emblem, which was designed for the bid for the Olympic Games, has received well over 17 000 signatures at the time of writing and growing at a rate of 2000 an hour.
It can be found at www.gopetition.co.uk/petitions/change-the-london-2012-logo.html
But once again the national press has seized the chance to jump on what appears to be the unjustifiably high cost (£400 000) for ‘just a logo’, when there is evidently more at stake. In time, will designers suffer from this latest mainstream design backlash?
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Readers' comments (20)
Nick Bowman | Tue, 5 Jun 2007 12:29 pm
Another PR disaster from the design world. I leave the professionals to agree whether or not Wolff Olins efforts are successful or not. But it is immeasurably frustrating that an industry that is full of highly talented individuals, and is a world leader has failed yet again to get its communication act together. Any PR with more than a week's experience would have known this was going to be a controversial issue, so the positioning of the work was critical. It's about time the industry took its PR as seriously as its creative output.
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Andy Sturt | Tue, 5 Jun 2007 12:36 pm
*sigh*
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don mammatt | Tue, 5 Jun 2007 1:19 pm
Sydney, Athens and Beijing have all ploughed the same furrow with a large degree of predictability. Part of the criticism is based on comfort zones and pre-conceived notions of what a logo of this sort should look like.
A massive element of this identity will be working on-line and it also has to be flexible to hold its own within a corporate sponsor's own marketing agenda.
My guess is it will prove adaptable and it already has high level of recognition. Of course, we can all do better - that's designers, what else should be expected.
The public? They see a logo, they don't see the brief and they remain blisssfully ignorant of the practical demands imposed upon a project of this nature.
I find the reaction very...British!
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Nick Johnson | Tue, 5 Jun 2007 1:56 pm
What can I say that hasn't already been said, other than that the folks behind the Millennium Dome disaster can now begin to emerge from the shadows, confident that they weren't behind Britain's biggest ever design mistake!
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Mary Fry | Tue, 5 Jun 2007 4:43 pm
So far all the excuses I've seen for the logo fall back on "the public don't understand" etc. Wake up - WO was paid to come up with something the public would understand and respond to. A logo which needs long expanatory, brand babble is not a good logo. How can people continue to fly in the face of overwhelming public opinion? People don't like it and feel it doesn't fit with the Olympics or the UK's image...that's what is important regardless of "the brief" or "the practicalities". If a plumber screws up your pipes, you don't say "well, he probably had a dodgy spanner". Professionals deal with the practical difficulties of their jobs.
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Luke Francis | Tue, 5 Jun 2007 5:15 pm
I admire him for daring to be different, this logo has raised a huge awareness of the Olympic games in London and provoked reactions from people all over the country, whether it is liked or disliked! And surely thats quite an achievement in itself.
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jenna LIVINGSTON | Tue, 5 Jun 2007 5:16 pm
I am a graphic design student who is just about to graduate from university this summer and i am ashamed of that new logo. If any of my classmates or myself were to produce such a shocking piece of graphic design i would indeed have failed my course. I do believe that the logo must show our country in a good light and i personally feel that logo makes us look stupid.
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Stuart Renfrew | Tue, 5 Jun 2007 5:51 pm
I have been a graphic designer for 30 years, I thought that I should move over and leave it to the younger generation. Thank god I didn't. I taught design as a consultant lecturer at an art college and if any of my students would have produced work like the olympic 2012 logo I would have told them not to waste there time and leave.
Why those shapes? Why the crap typeface? Why use different shapes for the number 2? What are the shapes for? What do they represent (other than numbers)? Good luck to the design company, they'll be laughing all the way to the bank. Don't forget 'The Emperors New Clothes' Unfortunately they couldn't pull the wool over the publics eyes
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Stella Walton | Tue, 5 Jun 2007 6:24 pm
Haha-"DARING TO BE DIFFERENT" it looks like they have just looked at the latest copy of POP magazine and grabbed a few flyers for electro clubs in Shoreditch and nicked the styling-but it has been executed really badly! I think the coloured shaped flitting about are meant to represent energy?? But the games they are holding are old fashioned...how about including some newer sports like Parkour...Bmxing and maybe dance inc Breaking ? Didn't they want to introduce skate boarding? But the skate industry wouldn't accept it? Why not...I'm all for change...but this looks errrr WHACK??
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Mark Taylor | Tue, 5 Jun 2007 9:08 pm
Why have so very few people realised that the London Olympic Bid logo is a direct lift of the TISWAS (The 70s Saturday Morning kids show) logo?
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