Comments on: Alternative London 2012 logo designs

By: Adaptiv Media

Adaptiv Media — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:42:44 +0000

Great work. You definately chose the pick of the bunch. Agree with Stuey. I think it’s almost certain we will have forgotten what all the fuss was about with the design of the logo. I just read Wolff Olins own case study. I can see what they are trying to achieve with the logo and when presented in different forms throughout the five years I think we may even be saying it was the best olympic logo of recent times…

By: David Airey :: Graphic Designer

David Airey :: Graphic Designer — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 21:43:29 +0000

Hi Samah,

The ideas above aren’t actually mine, but taken off the BBC website, submitted by viewers.

Interesting that you and Lexie are both working on projects with the Olympic logo. It’d be great if you showed the results online for me / us to see.

By: Lexie

Lexie — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 21:23:59 +0000

Im an AS level student taking graphics and i am looking to produce a directional sign based on the london Olympics, when i fist saw the logo it looked like my nephew could have drawn it - and he is 5. But when i took a closer look, i think it was designed to appeal to a very wide age range, children for example would never look at something an adult looks at, but an adult will look at what has caught the childs eye, so therefore it is attracting all ages.

By: Samah

Samah — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:20:45 +0000

hi,
im studying graphics at the moment and our project is to re-design the olympic logo for london 2012 like you have done and the designs are very i good. i agree with what matt has said- design no. 2 is very good but i would also take the slogan-”we’ve got the olympics in us” because it sort of ruins the the design i think..but your ideas are very good.

By: Stuey

Stuey — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 08:47:04 +0000

I’ve been a designer for 21 years and a member of The Chartered Society of Designers for 14, so you could say that I have an eye for such things. I, like the majority of people it seems was also shocked, disgusted and embarrassed when the 2012 logo was launched.

Now, having lived with it for a few weeks, it has started to grow on me, apart from the hot pink, which will always be vile, I’d go as far as to say I almost like it.

There are elements of the logo which are tacky, the way the word London and the Olympic rings are treated, but if the design evolves I’m happy to watch its progress.

Seb Coe is right about London deserving more than just another corporate looking logo (see the Olympic bid version). In 5 years time we may all be wondering what the fuss was all about.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 18:46:00 +0000

I think that the ‘official’ logo is not at all appropriate of what London, Britain or the Olympic Games are about. In my oppinion the 2nd replacement logo shown on this page is much better, though i would take out the slogan ‘we’ve got the olympics in us’, which really does not work!

By: Vivienne Quek

Vivienne Quek — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 06:45:03 +0000

Organising an event like Olympics involved the entire country and not just the government and the organising committee. No wonder the British citizens were unhappy. Out of curisity, I check out Sydney 2000, Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008. Well, nationalism is evident in the graphic execution.

The current design will probably remain it would be a PR disaster as pointed out by Aaron

By: David Airey :: Creative Design ::

David Airey :: Creative Design :: — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 07:53:41 +0000

Stephen,

Thanks for your comments. You make valid points about having a re-design. It’s such a botch job in my eyes, and the seizure inducing promo video was the icing on the cake.

My friend Lee makes a great point about all the newspapers saying we should let school children design the logo and the money could go to schools. Children can’t design! It’s ridiculous.

John,

The money that was spent is absolutely not for just the logo. It’s most likely used for brand placement, guidelines, website development, promotional material etc etc.

Thanks very much for everyone’s thoughts on this.

By: John

John — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 13:54:45 +0000

I think that a good idea might be to choose one of the many thousand “free” logos that many designers have and wil submit as alternatives. A contest to redesign the logo would be great. It would send out the message that

1. They are listening to the public and we agree that they might have messed up a bit, and

2. Because they spent so much money on the first effort, they are going to try and minimize taxpayer cost

Heck, they may even be able to get a sponsor to pay for the cost of the redesign.

One problem is that the logo itself is probably not the sole delivery of the money that was spent. There have been videos created, style guides made, and maybe even signage designed for all of the venues. That takes a lot of money and time to aredesign

By: Stephen Connolly

Stephen Connolly — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 13:15:48 +0000

I had a very long rant on the Brand Republic site so won’t bore you with it again here. I, like almost everyone else, don’t like this ‘brand’, ‘mark’ or what ever we are calling it today - a poor representation of what the British design industry can produce. It’s clunky, lacks any style and to be quite honest looks like an early concept scamp that has somehow made it all the way through to approval. And yes, it does look like something a 12 year old could produce - and that’s doing an injustice to most 12 year olds.

I’m all for being bold and memorable but not at the expense of good design, which this clearly is not. OK it’s generated the most incredible response - the kind of PR exposure that any agency might be proud of - but the expression ‘there is no such thing as bad publicity’ can’t apply here.

I disagree about not having a re-design - it should be. The argument that having it re-designed will be a PR disaster and reflect badly on the British design community doesn’t stand up. Surely it would be better to hold your hands up and say ‘fair enough’ and admit you might have got it wrong. Sticking with a logo that is so universally hated will surely do more damage to what is, at the moment at least, a British industry that leads the rest of the world.