Posted 4 June 2007, by Aaron
Everyone’s saying it, opinions seem to be unanimous, the London 2012 Olympic Games logo sucks!
Earlier today at a star-studded ceremony, Lord Sebastian Cole proudly unveiled the identity of Britain’s pride and joy, the London 2012 Olympic Games.
If reaction and publicity is what they wanted, it is most certainly what they’ve got. Lets just summarise:
In fact, through digging around I have yet to see or hear of even one slightly positive response. So I’m going to take a step back, look at things in a calm and reflective manner, and try to identify if there are any positives.
It’s not a corporate logo
It’s important to distinguish between a corporate logo and a logo for a large sporting event like the Olympic Games. Companies operate in a commercial world where there is competition from rival companies. Corporate logos need to be instantly recognisable from the competition; if the public struggle to identify with a logo this leads to a loss of performance, loss of sales, loss of jobs and all sorts of bad stuff.
The Olympics doesn’t operate in the same kind of environment as this. There will be no other large athletics games competing for TV and advertising space in the summer of 2012. Lets face it, we’re all going to watch the games on TV, the stadiums will be full, advertisers are going to pay millions to have anything to do with the games, and the public feeling towards the logo will have absolutely no effect on this at all.
So without these commercial pressures I think this enables the designers to take a few more risks and be unconventional. This logo certainly is unconventional and I think that’s fine. In fact, I think it’s a good positive thing.
Are logos for large sporting events ever any good?
Lets be fair and compare like for like. Anyone remember the World Cup in Germany last year?
If anything the World Cup has a larger world audience than the Olympics. So the highest profile of all world sporting events must surely be what we look up to and measure ourselves against, right?
Oh deary me, that’s not very good. In fact the German World Cup logo was hated so much by the German design community that they went ahead and designed their own (much better) alternative version.
So can we take heart from the fact that logos for large sporting events are always just a bit dodgy? How does the London logo compare with these?
The Barcelona Olympics logo, a stylised stick figure athlete clearly influenced by the works of Juan Miro, is a great logo. However, Athens’ and Atlanta’s logo are a bit ‘meh’.
Compared with these, the London 2012 logo really stands out. My favourite of these (Barcelona) is also pretty conventional. London is trying to be brave which makes it stand out… some might say like a sore thumb. This might not be such a bad thing.
A brand isn’t just a logo
The London Olympics will be identified by far more than just the logo. Over the next few years we will be seeing lots of bright blues, pinks, greens and oranges; we will see lots of jagged shapes and sharp edges. If this logo is anything at all it is certainly vibrant, and will form the foundation for a much wider visual style, which is colourful exciting and vibrant.
This visual style will also be accompanied by carefully selected and equally vibrant theme songs by cutting edge and trendy British rock bands. Adverts will feature these songs, Happy Meal boxes will use these colours, Coca Cola cans will replace the curvy swoosh with a jagged edge.
OK, I’m being a tad presumptuous, but to demonstrate what I mean by this I suggest watching the official brand video which I think is excellent and might even sway a few peoples’ opinion.
EDIT: There have been reports of a section of the brand video causing epileptic seizures. In the interests of health and safety I have decided to remove the video. If a re-edited version appears on the London 2012 website I will post that.
Lord Cole has already stated how they are trying to appeal to the youth and they are approaching this with a cutting edge, trendy and vibrant brand. Whether this concept is cutting edge and trendy is still open to debate, but it must be viewed as more than just a logo.
Conclusion
I’ve intentionally been very fair to the London logo – perhaps overly fair. My instinctive reaction upon viewing the logo was one of shock and horror. From reading the reactions of the general public and respected designers alike, not many people seem to like this logo and some are quite angry about it.
The purpose of this article was not to be different for the sake of being different, but to identify some positives. To a certain extent I am playing the Devil’s advocate, but the points I raise are valid.
Lets not forget they are designing a logo for something that is happening five years in the future. That requires a lot of foresight, and a need to be courageous. With the world watching, the designers and the London team could have quite easily announced a ’safe’ logo. Instead they have boldly hit everyone in the face with something outrageously different.
Whatever your opinion of the logo, which is probably low, the people behind it knew it would raise a few eyebrows today, and on that basis their bravery, adventurousness, or downright foolishness, must be acknowledged.
Over to you.
Many thanks for the previous posts’ comments: Asgeir, Justin, Marc, Sera, Mac, David and Romeo.
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Tags:Branding, Design, Logos, Olympics, Video
Aaron,
The problem isn’t with the video, conceptually it makes sense. As an additional vehicle ( medium ) to further communicate the concept, it works. I’m not going to mention the fact that the animation and tracking is off or that it resembles the technical capabilities of the video-toaster ( a video graphics machine from the 80s ), no-instead I will suggest that the logo needs to stand on it’s own, first and foremost without the support of additional mediums. 
The biggest problem I foresee with this debate is, despite people thinking it’s a bad design, the media that will be produced to support it will overshadow and resolve any conceptual problems. They can saturate the market with the work and in effect, it will succeed. Even bad design can survive with consistent placement strategies.
It looks awful, but it’s new for the category. So-who’s to say?
Personally, I like Atlanta’s Logo still. And, the funny thing is, the Flames make more sense as an animated graphic trailing the athletes then the geometric shapes do. At-the-least, the concept ties in with more then just ‘colors.’
well compared to the other logos I think it the worst 
The London logo reminds me of something one of my professors said this quarter when viewing a less than impressive logo designed by a student: “It looks like you vomited vectors all over the page.”
That’s what it looks like to me .. they didn’t try very hard.
It looks like Lisa Simpson giving a blow job. Oh and yes parodys to that effect are doing the rounds on the net.
I’ve been reading that Wolff Olins were the wrong agency to produce this. In hindsight I agree.
Design by committee? Probably, although it’s nowhere near as evident as the Germany World Cup logo – “Can we have this here? Oh, and that there? Put this in too”.
The Germany logo was ridiculous but at least it had a few elements of relevance.
Why couldn’t the 2012 logo keep the olympic colours? Add British colours? Reference one of London’s many landmarks? As much as he’s talking this up, Seb Coe is not a brand strategist.
Fair play for trying to be positive, Aaron. I still think this is a disaster.
[...] community at Creative Bits aren’t particularly in favour. Aaron at miLienzo attempts to shed some positives on the logo design. One of the few I’ve seen. Industrial Brand Creative ask, “Brilliant or [...]
I signed up for google alerts on logo design, and literally all I have had is bad reviews for the Olympic logo, and I have to agree I think its awful too. What I would be interested to find out is why is it so bad, what were he other concepts like? Did the agency want the logo to look like this or has it been designed by Committee?
I’m with Tara. It’d be great to see what the variations were for the design.
Design by committee isn’t so apparent to me, although the poor outcome has all the trademarks.
Perhaps we’ll find out more in the coming days. The un-ending news coverage suggests we will.
Marc – Personally I don’t mind the 80s connotations. Yeah, the 80s sucked – music was rubbish, style appalling – but hey, maybe the 80s just happened 30 years too soon? Ever the optimist I know, but I think your point about the logo not working on its own is actually its biggest problem. The garish colours are not a problem to me, the lack of clichéd London symbols is a good thing, even the fact that you have to squint to even realise it says 2012, at a stretch can be forgiven. On its own, as a static logo, it struggles.
Arpit – Thanks for commenting 
– Agreed that compared to the other logos it stands out, and the instinctive reaction is a negative one. The fact that it stands out though, can be seen as a positive.
Sera – Hmmm, vector vomit. I can’t disagree with you on that one. In fact it more closely resembles a pool of pink vomit than 2012…. (oops, have I let my positive front slip?)
Fido – Thanks for the comment. In fact it probably looks more like Lisa Simpson than a pool of pink vomit.
David – Thanks for the ping. This notion of design by committee is an interesting one. I don’t think this is design by committee at all – I think this could be the exact opposite. This looks to me like the designers were given too much creative freedom. I think it’s too far-out, too unusual to what people’s expectations are, and that is why we’re seeing so much negativity.
Tara – I agree it would be interesting to see the concepts and how they’ve developed. Like I say to David, I don’t think this is design by committee at all. A design by committee would be a safe, tamed down, obvious, all things to all people design. This isn’t.
Whoa! That is a seriously bad logo. I do think it looks noticeably worse than the other 3 you show it next to. I think the Salt Lake City logo was a good one:
Thanks for the linkage. Actually, I use the technical term brand-wank to describe the hype with which the logo was launched, rather than the logo itself. I can get over a crappy logo – as you point out, the standard wasn’t that high.
It’s the grandiosity that amazes me. I think in our networked days it shows the organisers horribly out of touch with reality. And Edelmans and Wolff Olins should both have red faces for that.
Doesn’t that come from the kind of funky patterns you could find on fluorescent ski suits or pseudo-sporty baggy pants of that 80’s period?… at least that’s the only reference I can find with sports and this logo.
Maybe you should publish a warning next to the video? The diving sequence has been causing epileptic seizures!
A number of people have reported this to the charity Epilepsy Action and they say that around 23,000 people could be affected by it. I believe the sequence in question is actually being edited out.
For the record, I think the logo is terrible Too cheesy, too 80s, too garish… I was expecting Max Headroom to pop up in the video.
Johnnie – No probs. I agree a lot of w@nky hyperbole gets chucked around. But, you know, everyone’s been talking about this for two days now. Sure, it’s been predominantly bad talk, but no publicity is bad publicity. As a brand, it’s not done too bad.
Gregory – Yeah it does. In fact I think I had a shell-suit with a similar pattern on it back in the day. I don’t think the designers have tried to design something which represents sport per-se, which for an Olympic logo might seem like sacrilege, but they’ve tried to do something completely off the wall and different. Admitedly, probably a bit too different.
Dan – Thanks for the comment. You’re right and I’ve removed the video now. I actually think the video is a genuinely good video, so I’m kind of gutted that the producers failed to realise this might happen. Surely anyone who works with video production knows about epilepsy? For me the video made a bad logo a tiny bit better. Now it’s made a bad logo even worse. Silly people.
This logo is really good at one thing: getting a ton of people to talk about it. It was even on the Daily Show tonight. Not being a graphics designer, this was the first time I’d ever even thought about olympic logos.
That said, I do think it is quite ugly. Looking at it makes me feel nervous.
The logo still looks weird, and it doesn’t seem fitting to put all those jagged edges out there.
It’s great that you posted all those previous logos for comparison. I still think that the London one is the worst of the lot.
This is my first time to see the logo in 4 colors though. Originally thought that it was just in pink.
Hmm, I don’t think I’m quite ready to buy the “no publicity is bad publicity” assertion, becuase it seems to me that’s all it is, an assertion. I for one would rather be an unknown than being a well-known wanker!
Borga – Yup, this logo has been the most talked about piece of design for a long time. And it’s got people talking about design in general. Not bad for a crap ugly logo.
Ace – I appreciate why you think the London logo is the worst of the lot compared to previous Olympic logos. And you’re clearly not alone in thinking that. Personally I think the previous Olympic logos are pretty obvious and safe logos. Which I guess is fine, but the London logo is at least attempting to redefine a type of logo, and thats OK too.
Johnnie – Sure, I’ve worked in PR so I’m well aware that there IS actually such a thing as bad publicity. However, the exposure this logo has got has been phenomenal – it’s now a VERY well-known brand. Although porbably not in the way the designers expected/hoped.
There are lots of well-known w@nkers in this world that do very well for themselves.
Aaron,
You’re right. It’s gets people’s backs up and that’s good. Everybody will remember this logo – no one will ever remember Athens’, Atlanta’s or Beijing’s. There’s no such thing as bad publicity. There’s no such thing as good or bad design or design that works or doesn’t – to paraphrase Bob Gill. And this logo does the job, I think. Everybody hated the Eiffel Tower when it went up. You’re right and everybody else is wrong, you’ve just got to wait a few years before you can feel smug about it.
Another thing that I liked about this logo is that someone obviously had the balls to choose it over more conventional ones – really good!
There’s no such thing as good or bad design JUST design that works or doesn’t.
Sorry, terrible typo.
I agree that London’s is the worst alongside Barcelona Spain.
[...] As olimpÃadas de Beijin nem começaram e Londres já vem fazendo muito barulho! Muito tem sido comentado a respeito da nova Identidade Visual dos Jogos OlÃmpicos de Londres em [...]
I made this short animation explaining how the logo might have been created! Click the link under my name, above.
Aaron, I’m glad you finished your article with:
‘Lets not forget they are designing a logo for something that is happening five years in the future. That requires a lot of foresight, and a need to be courageous.’
I was waiting for that. I think this is the key to the logo. London is cutting edge style, usually 6 months ahead of the U.S. in fashion, music, pop style. I think the designers are designing for the future – and making a pretty big gamble. Still, its nearly impossible to imagine style 4+ years from now, no?
Hats off if they hit the nerve in 2012.
Getting used to it doesn’t make it a good logo. I hope and pray that in the years to come none will try to present it as an all time great creation!
Luciano and Vassilis – Thanks for both of your comments and sorry I hadnt the time to respond sooner. It’s interesting to see that the issue still splits oppinions and I’m sure it will for a long time still.
Well as being compared with the other logos the London Olympic logo is just not up to the mark. The one that stands out in here is the Atlanta Logo. Lets wait and see if this design clicks on by 2012.
I do agree with the few others here. Comparing to the other logos the London Olympic logo is not upto the mark.
[...] olimpíadas de Beijin nem começaram e Londres já vem fazendo muito barulho! Muito tem sido comentado a respeito da nova Identidade Visual dos Jogos Olímpicos de Londres em [...]
First year graphic design students would get torn apart if they were given a brief to design the 2012 logo and came up with this. There is literally zero relevnce, no great concept or plan behind the design, and it looks UGLY! I dont know what they were thinking, they took a risk, and failed, badly. I am ashamed to be an English designer.
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Marc Rapp
4 June 2007, 11:02 pm