The embarrassing new London Olympics logo(s)

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The new 2012 London Olympic Games logos are an expensive embarrassment:

embarrassing_London_Olympic_logos_300.jpg

The Official Media Release about the new logo is full of spin and endorsements from people with a vested financial or political interest in exploiting the Games.

The new London 2012 brand was designed by Wolff Ollins. The design brief was for an emblem that represented the four key 'brand pillars' of access, participation, stimulation and inspiration, culminating in the brand vision of 'Everyone's Games'."

They are not 'Everyone's Games' !!

They are only pretending to be "politically correct" and inclusive - there has been no public consultation or a design competition open to the public to suggest a new logo.

Wolff Olins (Note to the London Olympics spin doctors - there is only one "l" in "Olins") are a corporate re-branding agency, notorious for being used by incompetent management (who never seem to bother to consult their employees or customers) to produce new, expensive corporate brand logos, which are either virtually indistinguishable from the old ones, or are completely meaningless, and which are usually dropped a few months later e.g. the British Telecom "Piper" logo, the former chemical industry giant ICI , the notorious re-branding of the Post Office as Consignia, Price Waterhouse Coopers rebranding as Monday etc.

The Register describes them as "whalesong" merchants, who seem to have trousered at least £400,000 for this logo design and brand consultancy.

  • The fact that the new logo is officially available in 4 different colour schemes betrays the indecision and dithering by Lord Coe and the Olympic Delivery Authority - why could they not decide on just one logo ? Have they never heard of the concept of "brand dilution" ?

  • Why does the logo not mention "2012" at all ?

  • Why is "london" not capitalised as "London" ?

  • What is so terrible about the existing "bid" logo design, which is at least a lot clearer than this new one ?

    Old_London_2012_Olympics_logo_150.jpg

Perhaps the real clue as to the why this logo design is so awful can be gleaned from the end of the press release:

The unique new emblem already enjoys legal protection, offering London 2012 and its sponsors protection from copying and ambush marketing.

Remember that words or images like "London" or "Olympic(s)" or "2012" have been nationalised by the NuLabour Government and will be sold as exclusive monopolies for advertising purposes to the corporate sponsors of the scheme.

Perhaps the politicians are planning to try to clean up graffiti and unsightly vomit from the streets of London, by fining the people responsible up to £50,000 for infringing on these all too similar London Olympics logos which are "protected from ambush marketing" by the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006

See: "London Olympics Bill - disproportionate advertising monopoly powers sought"

Another bit of disinformation in the press release:

The film was released simultaneously on the internet to thousands of bloggers who signed up to a blog-based online 'tease' campaign.

This implies that people who simplyread blogs or websites are "bloggers", rather than the usual definition of bloggers as people who publish blogs.

We doubt that there are "thousands of bloggers" in London or worldwide who support these awful and embarrassing logo designs, even if they support the 2012 London Olympic Games

7 Comments

This new logo for the Olympic games is truely hideous. It should symbolize the good, unite countries, it should be an emblem that dictates harmony. Which this one doesn't.

BBC News 24 now reports that the animated version of the logo has been removed from the official London Olympics website, as the sequence with the diver and the pool flashes, and contravenes the Ofcom TV regulator guidelines for preventing photosensitive epileptic fits i.e. should be less than 3 flashes per second covering less than 25% of the screen.

There are reports of at least 9 people who have suffered fits as a result already, with a likely risk to several thousand people in the UK alone.
.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6724245.stm

L O N D O N 2 O 1 2

I would have looked for and found a way to make the two Os in LONDON and the zero in 2012 work for me as the three top rings in the Olympic logo. Being a graphic person myself, I did not see the numbers in the logo until I read the rationale.

If a logo does not talk to you, you should not allow things people say about it to cause you to see things in it that are simply not there. Some of the most talented graphic artist I know are based in London. Any one of them could have done much better than that. I hope that it is not too late.

Raul Bermudez
toymaker@cricket.tt

Migraine sufferers are also reporting in to the BBC about this stupid animated film version of the poorly designed logo.

To be fair to Wolff Olins and the Olympic Deilvery Authority, the TV Broadcasters should also have tested the wretched video clip with the "industry standard" automatic photo induced epilepsy risk test equipment, which was apparently off the scale before transmission.

During the visit from the IOC, the 2012 logo videos on YouTube were unavailable!
No wonder the inspectors think the logo is good - they can't see it as a couple having oral sex.The logo is doomed.

There are people who have re-arranged the blotches so that they clearly spell out the word ZION rather than "2012"

http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=105194

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