Fears over Olympic bid selection

Designers are expressing concern about the selection process for London’s Olympic bid logo, as it emerged this week that London 2012 has shortlisted seven designs from a long list of 1100.

External judges have not been involved in the shortlisting process, which has been managed internally by director of marketing David Magliano and his team.

British Design & Art Direction president Michael Johnson, who is the only branding specialist on the panel of judges involved in choosing the winning design, says, ‘I’m very worried about how they got from 1100 entries to a shortlist of seven without any design help. It seems a highly dubious process.’

London 2012 would not reveal the shortlist, but a long list obtained by DW includes entries from Interbrand, Enterprise IG, Fitch London, Wolff Olins and FutureBrand.

Johnson contrasts the selection of London 2012’s ad agency with that of design. Four ad agencies have reputedly been shortlisted in an ‘above the board’ process, while designers have been party to a ‘vanity parade’, he says.

Judging takes place this Thursday, with the winner to be announced mid-November.