Voxpop

With an Olympics body admitting to appointing designers at random, what can Olympics organisers do to improve their relationship with the design industry?

The Olympics will enlist the services of hundreds of industries, most of which won’t be able to resist airing their gripes about perceived injustices. But when you’re running multi-billion-pound projects there’s no time for such pettiness. For our industry to gain influence on the Olympics we must rely on the appointed designers to do outstanding work. Only then will the case for more involvement be made. Shame then that the 2012 logo got us off to such a bad start.

Jim Prior, Chief executive, The Partners

Trust the roster. London 2012 has a design roster, established at considerable expense, and the organisers should use it, trust it, and form deep relationships with the consultancies on it. As a rule, clients should reward their partner consultancies by sticking to the roster process, being clear about who has been rostered (and for what) and holding regular reviews to identify and root out under-performing work. In my experience, rostered consultancies are far more likely to be on-brand and on-message. Basic stuff, really.

Neil Svensen, Chief executive, Rufus Leonard

OK, they can improve the relationship with the design industry by stopping pretending that they have a relationship with the whole industry. We need a guru. A proper one. A head honcho. Where is our Javier Mariscal? Our Lance Wyman? Our Otl Aicher? What is the heart-stopping, tear-inducing, smile-raising masterplan? London 2012 should stop arsing about trying to be all nice and inclusive, and get some grumpy, sinister hard-arsed (and super-creative) leadership on the case. PS: I’m only a phone call away, Seb.

Rob Andrews, Independent identity consultant

Seems quite easy. They need to build relationships within the industry rather than commission via impersonal tenders, and put design at the heart of everything they do – which I would have thought they want to do anyway. The best way to do that would be via our trade association, the Design Business Association, and I have already asked Deborah Dawton to contact the organisers to offer our help, knowledge and support.

Nick Ramshaw, Managing director, Elmwood Leedsand President of the Design Business Association