Olympian Feat
With a tight race and a price-tag of some $800,000, many have been abuzz about the logo for the 2012 London Olympic Games since its unveiling last summer.
Here is just a smattering of the best on both sides of the ticket:
- "This is a truly innovative brand logo that graphically captures the essence of the London 2012 Olympic Games — namely, to inspire young people around the world through sport and Olympic values".
- "A puerile mess, an artistic flop and a commercial scandal".
- "It's not a logo; it's a brand that will take us forward for the next five years. It won't be to everybody's taste immediately, but it's a brand that we genuinely believe can be a hardworking brand."
- "failed to capture the British spirit".
- "a source of collective embarrassment rather than pride".
- "this is a brand to live up to which will force us to deliver the Games in a way which no other host city has ever done, not a comfortable blazer badge with ‘endearing' qualities or cute London skylines, but a big statement of intent,"
- "a 1980s hangover".
- "We said we'd be bold. We will be. Would you want it any other way?"
This is a deliberate change from previous Olympic logos, which often feature either an image from the city, the Olympic rings, or sometimes both. In essence, London has created a distinct Identity that separates them from the host cities of decades past.
So is that distinction good or bad? Why? Why not?
As fodder, here's a look at what the first London Olympics logo looked like (albeit their 2nd time to host), as well as some previous Olympic host city logos:
Cited from ABC News | BBC News | London Telegraph
8 Comments
"I'm going to go with 'fail' on this one. Maybe it'll grow on me, but for now, I think they could have paid a 3rd grader 5 bucks and spent the other 755,000 on bringing back the British version of the Office.
I guess it's better than Izzy though..."
- Steve
"I'm not even sure why this is a debate. The London logo is dripping with FAIL. There's plenty of room to be bold without having to do anything resembling that incoherent, overpriced, incomprehensible piece of WHA?!?
Now, there have been instances where I have immediate negative reactions to something like this only to have it grow on me after awhile. But having seen the London logo repeatedly for almost a year now, this hasn't occurred and I can't imagine that it would."
- Reid Davis
"I think '68 Mexico and '80 Russia are my favorites.
Curious what they'll say about the London logo in 20 years."
- Craig Johnson
"the 2012 logo is awful... just awful
I think the fact that there's so much backlash on the 2012 logo in itself means it's a big fail... and for $800k??? Even if it was the best logo in the world, it still would have been incredibly overpriced
huge thumbs down"
- Scully
"I didn't like it when they first unveiled it a few years back, but now I kind of do. It's not classically beautiful in the likes of Mexico or Russia, but I'm more relieved that it doesn't follow the recent trend of generic-whimsy like Sydney or Beijing.
Reminds me of 80s MTV, but I do commend the designers (and committee) for doing something ridiculous. At least it doesn't look like contemporary MTV."
- Alvin Diec
"Here is the best olympic logo ever: http://bit.ly/MwDR2"
- Kari Johnson
"Great post Dustin.
I can't even tell what its suppose to say. I sat here and stared at it for about 5 minutes trying to figure it out. I really want to like it because its London but just don't think I can."
- Bryan johnson
"[...] comité olympique londonien a dépensé 800 000$ pour arriver à cette horreur pour les Jeux Olympiques de 2012 (en boni les mascottes! ouch). Coût: 800 [...]"
- Combien devrait coûter un nouveau logo corporatif comme celui récemment dévoilé par Astral Média? « Blogue d'Etienne Chabot/ Etienne Chabot's Blog