The Wolff Olins’ 2012 Olympics logo is taking on a new look, tailored to the UK to celebrate the Olympic flag being handed over to London on 24 August. It will roll out from this week on, and will be applied to marketing materials which relate to the London 2012 UK handover events set to take place across Britain in the summer.
As the design industry propelled itself forward, we were always there to champion, inform, analyse and guide the way.
Have you been paying attention for the last four decades? Only one way to find out.
Design Week closes, having championed design excellence for the past 38 years.
As part of our series on design in 2024, WeWantMore creative director Ruud Belmans offers his view on what retail and experience design might look like next year.
Initially I thought this logo was a disaster, but I had high hopes that it would become a ‘window’ and that I would be proved wrong by some really clever, witty, fresh adaptations of the logo.
I still think it’s a disaster.
`At last, it has made a connection for me with sporting success, pride and national identity.` BBC Sports blog.
That’s just because of the addition of the Union Jack design and colours and what you associate with those. But will the rest of the world have the same associations? If it`s a Union Jack we now want why not just have a stylised Jack with the Olympic rings on it? Simple & to the point – if utterly unoriginal.
Look at the Tokyo 1984 logo (A red sun over the 5 gold rings) It shouted Japan. Athens 2004 used a laurel leaf crown. Sydney 2000 used boomerang shapes plus the distinctive outline of their opera house Beijing’s logo – a runner -looks like Chinese calligraphy. All good logos for their countries. Ours just still doesn’t signify Britain clearly enough.
The problem with adding the Union Jack at this stage is it now makes me look harder at all the fragmentation. (I do know it`s meant to be 2012. But it just doesn’t say it to me.) It looks as if it should be a jigsaw where the pieces will fit together, but it isn’t and they don’t. That’s because the Union Jack wasn’t part of the original design. And the message I get is of fragmentation, not unity.
The top two pieces with `London` and the five rings now have a clearer message, but the lower three pieces are now completely redundant. The upper Z shape, why is it a Z shape? I’m looking for a meaning that isn’t there. (This Z could become an outline of the British coast, which at least could help identify the country more clearly, but it`s just mangling the design still further.)
I understand the London Olympic committee are still thinking of having a public competition to find another Logo. YES, YES, YES.
If a design isn’t working then re-jigging it like this is unlikely to provide a solution. Let a panel of designers (maybe those that designed logos for previous Olympics) choose a shortlist and then put them to a public vote to get a consensus on the winner.
the London 2012 logo is simply the nail on the coffin for the logo industry. With 5 more years to go, so far it has broken all the rules of international symbology and stood alone as a trend-setter proving that now logos are just splashes and patches of disconnected ideas and designed to be easily forgotton, changed like a window in a busy cheap fashion district. The mobile culture has no time to remember anything so why bother with logos in the first place. throw some paint and let it drip, then throw some more on it next day…but keep charging the good old high price intelligent rates. 2012 logo is a proof that despite the international outcry the shear stupidity of the new art will survive. By 2012 the Union Jack may have to be changed too to match the logo.
Simply the worst design the 20th Century has seen. Not only is the lettering outdated (it resembles a bad 1980’s font only furthered by the acid pink) but it’s hard to read.
I’m a Brit living in New York and showed this to an American who didn’t understand what it said. He was looking at Z’s and squares and it wasn’t until i pointed out that it was supposed to be a 2 and a 0 that he got it. What’s the dot for? There is no representation of British culture unless we’re trying to tell the world that we embrace graffiti whole heartedly? Do we? Last time i checked we were trying to clean up the underground and under those bridges in east London.
This then brings me to the ‘Union Jack’. Yes, it’s British, but is it not also a painfully obvious attempt by the designer to cover up his mistakes? By drawing attention to the flag rather than design we paste over the lettering and thus try to ignore the failed idea. Is it too late to change things? Can the Lord Coe and the committee swallow its pride and accept that this was a disastrous decision to publicise such a momentous event? Can the UK unite and show its pride when they have to stamp such a horrendous logo all over its country? Couldn’t we have had more consultation?? Who on earth did they question in their surveys? 4 year olds?
I rest my case …