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2012 Olympics Logo unveiled

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...

As a lone freelancer it pains me to see this type of commission go to a monster agency like Wolff Olins and get researched to death. I'm not saying that they should have gone so far as to let the kids of Southwark Primary school should have a logo design competition (although when I first saw it that's where I thought it had come from), but there are so many brilliant and talented small studios who would have treated this brief as the opportunity of a lifetime, whereas £400,000 to WO would have put it somewhere in the middle of their list of accounts (the last big flop they orchestrated was Abbey National and that cost £500,000).

I think that what it boils down to is that it's just not possible to spend that kind of money on a logo - my day rate is £200 so for £400,000 they could have bought 2000 days of my time, or 7.7 years (not including weekends). I'm sure in that time I would have eventually come up with something better. Of course they have to justify the cost somehow, so they spend it on research, account handlers, expensive presentations, research, nice offices, research, lunches at the Ivy - all in an attempt to make the client feel as though their money is well spent. I suppose they couldn't give the brief to a small studio and just spend a mere £50,000 or so, as that wouldn't have seemed befitting to the scale of the event. I think it's a shame.
 
iBlue said:
Is there hope of it being changed? Does that happen often?
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Doubtful. Although everyone that's seen it agrees it's utter *****, the Mayor seems to like it :rolleyes:

As was suggested in the Metro this morning, they could've saved £400k or whatever it was and launched a nationwide competition for schools to design the logo... probably with better results... and offered cash prizes for the top 3 designs.
 
iBlue said:
Is there hope of it being changed? Does that happen often?
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No, not immediately. Plans to roll it out across all sorts of work will already be in place... we're just going to have to live with it. All those involved know that this is a storm in a teacup and it will blow over, awful as the work is.

We may see some tweaks over the years leading up to 2012.

Due to internal demand from all sorts of levels, I'm reworking our logo and parts of our brand at the moment, as it has been proved impractical over two years. I wasn't involved in the initial design, however... ;) I was away for four months at the time.
 
Blue Velvet said:
and it will blow over
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True, it certainly did for the bid identity.

Though to be honest, I'd rather have a design that promotes and generates discourse (good or bad) as opposed to a design that is full of the usual visual clichés that it could so easily have become.

I admire their audacity to be honest.
 
I've slagged it off so much I'm actually growing quite fond of it. It's like the ugly little runt that has been thrust out into a cruel scornful world.

Each day that it survives is like a little triumph.
 
RedTomato said:
I've slagged it off so much I'm actually growing quite fond of it. It's like the ugly little runt that has been thrust out into a cruel scornful world.

Each day that it survives is like a little triumph.
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:D

Well, I suggested above that maybe it's supposed to be ironic.
 
MacboobsPro said:
You mean that London is crap and so the logo reflects the utter crapness with its unaesthetic choice of shapes and colour?
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No. I mean that I admire their audacity for attempting something different, for what is ultimately an inherently conservative product.

As I have said, it would've been so easy for them to have relied heavily on visual clichés that work on no other level than the purely superficial, and that are devoid of any other meanings other than what is presented.

And that in my opinion would've been to even greater detriment, not only to the 2012 Olympics, but to the city of London as well.
 
iGav said:
No. I mean that I admire their audacity for attempting something different, for what is ultimately an inherently conservative product.

As I have said, it would've been so easy for them to have relied heavily on visual clichés that work on no other level than the purely superficial, and that are devoid of any other meanings other than what is presented.

And that in my opinion would've been to even greater detriment, not only to the 2012 Olympics, but to the city of London as well.
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Yes, but the problem is, it's still crap.
 
iGav said:
True, it certainly did for the bid identity.

Though to be honest, I'd rather have a design that promotes and generates discourse (good or bad) as opposed to a design that is full of the usual visual clichés that it could so easily have become.

I admire their audacity to be honest.
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I tend to agree with your point, the Olympic Committee wanted a reponse from the community abroad and that's what's happening.
 
Poor old England. Their navy is a shadow of it's former self. Their men are all ***** whipped. And they can't even come up with something artistic for their olympics logo. How the mighty have fallen.
 
aLoC said:
Their men are all ***** whipped.
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Not a bad thing. Men in other countries have to pay for it :)

I prefer us as a small European country too. All this British Empire malarky is SO two centuries ago.
 
londonweb said:
I think that what it boils down to is that it's just not possible to spend that kind of money on a logo
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correct, which is why it was spent on research, development, iteration, the logo, the brand identity, the style guides for print, web, motion/broadcast, environmental, apparel, etc...

its easy to forget that something like this has been designed all the way from the nametag on the janitor at the shot put bathrooms to the commercials and everything in between and sideways.

people who think this money goes to a bunch of designers jerking each other off in cool offices while conducting "research" and banging out a logo in their spare time really need to get out of the house and take a look at how building a huge brand like this actually works.

regardless of what you may think of the logo + surrounding identity, i can assure you that the cost is (at least mostly) justified.

having said that, i hated it at first. but to be honest when you look at the entire brand it has started to grow on me; by which i mean i no longer throw up in my mouth a little bit when i see it. who knows.
 
shecky said:
people who think this money goes to a bunch of designers jerking each other off in cool offices while conducting "research" and banging out a logo in their spare time really need to get out of the house and take a look at how building a huge brand like this actually works.

regardless of what you may think of the logo + surrounding identity, i can assure you that the cost is (at least mostly) justified.
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Thank you so much for saying that. I don't have to like the final result of what they've come up with, but I'm deep in the middle of branding guidelines at the mo. It's difficult and time-consuming work, taking many variants, media, uses and views into account...
 
Heard on the news that the Video is having to be withdrawn as epileptics are feeling ill after viewing it
 
Brize said:
These guys seem to have convinced themselves that it's actually quite good:
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They do make some good points. It's really the unimaginative colours (CMY), typography and the Olympic rings within the shape that wind me up... that type is just a couple of steps from Comic Sans.
 
xUKHCx said:
Heard on the news that the Video is having to be withdrawn as epileptics are feeling ill after viewing it
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I heard that to, are they going to save our eyes and withdraw the entire thing, it wasn't clear from the news that I watched.
 
shecky said:
people who think this money goes to a bunch of designers jerking each other off in cool offices while conducting "research" and banging out a logo in their spare time really need to get out of the house and take a look at how building a huge brand like this actually works.
Click to expand...

Come off it. This money has gone to a bunch of designers who clearly regard themselves as far more clever and important than they really are, and it's all gone to make somthing terribly self-indulgant and meaningless. This 'brand building' bull that has now infested everything from schools and hospitals to politics itself and has gone far enough. Not everything has to be reduced down to a brand essence. Sometimes we should focus more on the actual real effect of these projects rather than how they can be marketed and sold to people. In other words, that £400,000 should have been spent on better sporting facilities (which, despite the Olmpyics buzz, are still shamefully neglected in most working-class areas) so we can actually compete in our own Olympics.

Of course, brand building is important where people want to make money with their product. But some things should just be left alone. I thought we'd seen the last of this sort of rubbish with the Consignia crap that was almost forced upon the Post Office.

Start the flaming... ;)
 
Blue Velvet said:
They do make some good points.
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Some self-contradictory ones, though. The "It's reproducable" point in particular sticks out like a sore thumb.

typography
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Yeah, that too. One of the strong points of this scheme is supposedly that it will play well with electronic media, but everything about it—straight lines at odd angles, bright primary colors, thin weirdly-shaped lettering—begs to look crappy in pixel form.

Understood that this imagery is supposed to be aimed at the Happy Meal set, but those are the ones who will be first to spot and reject the manufactured "cool" aura around the whole thing.
 
@FleurDuMal

if your point is that this particular identity is bad, well, that can be argued both ways and is ultimately going to be a personal aesthetic preference (and i am not necessarily disagreeing with you, either.)

if your argument is that branding and identity in general is bad, then you are clueless, and you should stick to whatever your chosen field is, which i pray is not design. you are right, not everything has to be "reduced down to a brand essence," but in the case of the olympics, which take place across many venues, across a lot of distance, which have a global population attending hundreds of different events, with hundreds of thousands of people attending, working and competing, it most certainly does make sense and it most definitely not bad, it is needed.
 
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