2012 Olympics Logo unveiled

[dogbone]

I've been searching this thread trying to find someone who likes it! I can't remember the last time something came out on this scale and was met with such unanimous contempt! Brilliant...

may I direct you to posts #147 and #149

 

[RedTomato]

Recent big projects in London that have done rather well:

-The Millennium Wheel.

It was only intended to stay up for about a couple of years. It's been a wild, wild, wild success.

- London congestion charge

Irrespective of whether it actually has any affect on congestion, it was implemented rather well, and (I think) on time, rare for such a massive IT effort.

- The Erotic Gherkin.

Lots didn't like the design, but it's become iconic of modern London now.

- Tate Modern (I work there sometimes)

Completed on time (I think) and wildly successful. Before it opened, people were saying nobody would bother to go there.

 

[iGav]

The Dome would've been immense had they designed it as a giant Eden Project type exercise.

It would've been such a fantastic resource for inner city people that cannot for whatever reason readily travel away from the capital.

 

[72930]

- London congestion charge

Its dreadful...it has LOST money, and not helped a bit...damaged businesses too...

 

[bartelby]

One Olympic logo that worked well was this one.
View attachment 75910
This kind of device is dead simple to reproduce. It still looks modern over 30 years later,

I disagree, it looks very 70s and dated to me.

 

[skunk]

One Olympic logo that worked well was this one.
View attachment 75910

I can improve on that.

 

[iMeowbot]

I disagree, it looks very 70s and dated to me.

Funny, that. The winning 2006 UK entry for EULDA was Belle & Baz, which shares so many of the same attributes: simple monoline looping figure, could be used as a paperclip, forms doubling up in purpose (pair of Bs and a butterfly in this case), incorporating 1950s type.

I can improve on that.

Already noted.

(The same people who see Lisa Simpson in the London logo may notice other things in the Montreal symbol, but these people will see similar things in any shape )

 

[cube]

Was the 2012 Olympics logo designed by Scooch?

 

[CanadianGrit]

According to the CBC the logo causes epileptic

.

Why don't the the host cities just try to keep these things simple. Look at the logo from Calgary, very simple but very rich. The C's repersent Calgary, Canada, the Snowflake repersents both the winter olympics and the Canadian Flag (It was desgined to look like a maple leaf).

How about Salt Lake's Logo. The star is from the American Flag and it relefects both the flame and a snow flake:

Better yet, look at London's last olympic logo:

 

[iGav]

I personally liked the Sarajevo '84 one myself.

 

[iMeowbot]

Better yet, look at London's last olympic logo:

Now that one is severely dated The tourist trap gift shop ashtray kitsch is kind of cute, but…

 

[Project]

Put me in the minority because I love it. The pink and yellow is a bit garish but it works extremely well with some of the other colour schemes I have seen (particularly the Lloyds TSB version in the free papers the other day)

What I cant stand is the marketing drivel that was coming from Denise Lewis', Coes' and the likes mouths. Pure, unadulterated ********.

 

[ezekielrage_99]

That maybe so, but you (general, not personal) can not use that as an excuse, or amendment.

Shock tactics for a logo to gain interest, especially in this instance, is just disguising the fact that there is a lack of any good design in the first place. You can create much better marketing from a logo/brand that is well designed and inherent with the country and context.

For all that's said, and (little) done - I'm left with a feeling that a self-proclaimed 'hip, in with it' dellusional old fart has commisioned this logo on the belief he knows how the cool youth of today like.

It makes me sick. Not just because of that, but also because as a Graphic Designer, I'm ashamed this is what our country produced to the world.

I'm a Broadcast Graphics Designer and the point that I was trying to make is that from one point of view the logo is very successful, it's has gained the media attention the committee wanted.

However I think it still looks like a train wreck and I know that if I ever submitted a logo like that to a client I would be fired.

 

[ezekielrage_99]

That's only one piece. It's also important that people make appropriate associations (much, not all, of this can be addressed through good marketing efforts), and appearance does matter.

I think I made a link before to the Brand Channel Web Site which does set out to explain branding from an industry and psychological view point. I'm just saying that the only real design breif the London Olympic Commitee had was to "promote the games", "cause a media buzz" and "be easily recognisable" which like the logo or not they have accomplished very well. I'm not talking about the asthetic value of the logo because there have been far better logos than this one from a design perspective, Calgary 88 and the Sydney 2000 are two of the better Olympic logos out there in my opinion.

 

[Blue Velvet]

There's an article in tomorrow's Observer entitled 'The Olympian silence of man behind the logo'

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2099552,00.html

The only thing Boylan has been remarkable for in the past week - apart from being at the heart of the biggest row to afflict the 2012 Olympics since London won the bid in 2005 - has been his silence. He has been offered a number of chances to clear the air and explain what the distinctive logo shapes really stood for but plans for an interview this weekend turned into another public relations disaster. Boylan is remaining schtum.

...

According to Design Week magazine, Boylan has urged staff at Wolff Olins not to get 'despondent' about the reaction to the logo, unveiled by Lord Coe, chairman of London 2012, last week. In an email that the magazine claims to have seen, the chairman wrote that: 'It was inevitable given that 2012 were not able to tell the whole story [and] that we have not been allowed to tell our story, and the press is what it is.' He added: 'I am sure when the world outside gets to hear the full story the work will get the recognition it deserves and criticism which is informed and fair.'

...

Amid the criticism, Boylan has received the backing of his predecessor as chairman, Wally Olins, arguably the world's leading consultant in branding. Now at the consultancy Saffron, Olins, like co-founder Michael Wolff, no longer has any connection with Wolff Olins.

He said of the London 2012 logo: 'What's interesting is that it's so new and because it is new it is startling. This only happens when people do something that is so totally different that it's shocking. I've been involved in this kind of thing on a number of occasions during the course of my career and almost always it occasions the same kind of reactions. People produce something entirely new that is very unexpected and the reaction is shock, horror.'

He added: 'Where the criticisms lie, as it seems to me, are what happens to it when you look at it statically. The whole point of the thing is that it moves. It will appear year after year after year in all kinds of situations. Over the years, whenever you see it statically, it will remind you of what it's like when it moves. I think it's very imaginative and a very brilliant and brave piece of work, and if they keep their nerve there's no doubt that it will work.

I'll be the first to hold my hands up and say that I haven't seen it moving and if that's a major part of the identity, then I'll happily retract my earlier opinions. However, I don't think it's particularly 'new and totally different'. Perhaps for the Olympics, yes. But in the context of all visual design, no.

 

[BoyBach]

It appears that it is here to stay.

"We believe that the new London 2012 brand will establish the character and identity of the 2012 Games, nationally and internationally, and we will not be asking the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games to reconsider it," said Lord Davies [of Oldham, Culture spokesman].

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6750149.stm

 

[killr_b]

I see the swastika.
It was the first thing I noticed.

YEP

 

[aLoC]

The Erotic Gherkin.

Lots didn't like the design, but it's become iconic of modern London now.

It's not modern. It's like what you see in communist countries when they try to do something modern.

 

[M3G4]

Bit too eighties-throwback for me.

All the jagged lines just make it look more like the grafitti tags that litter London's underground system.

 

[RedTomato]

It's not modern. It's like what you see in communist countries when they try to do something modern.

I'll add you to the list of thousands who don't like the design (of the Erotic Gherkin).

However, it now appears in many representations of modern London, which shows it's been a successful design on some level.

[the Congestion Charge] Its dreadful...it has LOST money, and not helped a bit...damaged businesses too...

And I'm also not totally sure that it's actually cut congestion, even tho I support it in principle.

My point was that it was a truly massive IT project that seems to have been implemented well (with regards to the IT aspects) and on time, and with a distinctive logo. (a rare thing for all these things to happen in concert)

 

[Doctor Q]

Think how easy it will be for Chicago or Madrid or Prague or Rio de Janeiro or Tokyo, or whichever city hosts the 2016 Olympics, to do better!

 

[Thomas Veil]

Okay, I'm taking a Rorschach test, and the psychiatrist shows me that logo and asks me to think of the first words that come to mind.

And I say, "Broken swastika."

 

[Jaffa Cake]

Think how easy it will be for Chicago or Madrid or Prague or Rio de Janeiro or Tokyo, or whichever city hosts the 2016 Olympics, to do better!

It's that famous British politeness, we're trying to make it as easy as possible for whoever follows us to put on a better Games.

You think the logo is bad, you wait and see how badly we mess up the organisation of the Games themselves. We're nice like that.

 

[Queso]

You think the logo is bad, you wait and see how badly we mess up the organisation of the Games themselves. We're nice like that.

I'm so planning to be out of this city by then. The thought of even attempting to get around London with the games and additional visitors adding to the madness doesn't bear thinking about.

In the meantime however, I'm still having to pay for it.

Meh!!!

 

[Doctor Q]

You think the logo is bad, you wait and see how badly we mess up the organisation of the Games themselves. We're nice like that.

Good designers charge more, so perhaps it was wise to invest very little on the logo and save the money for what are likely to be huge security expenses.