Londoners have bad taste and judgement. We knew the Palace of Westminster was ugly and needed replacing. Monument was a pointless waste of money. And forks in the Middle Ages were Satan’s tridents.
We hated the neon boards at Piccadilly, derided our large clean bendy busses, and feared escalators were made to kill us.
It is not just that we judge the new wrong – it is that we judge the new so wrong that only Christopher Wren’s cleverness kept us from cancelling St Paul’s Cathedral half way up.
And so it is that the new Olympic symbol deserves great praise.
It reflects dynamism, youth, togetherness, inclusion, sport, integrity, honesty, fluffy bunnies, and double chocolate ice cream. It is a vibrant brand that will bring the world together and will reflect the glory of the greatest sporting spectacle on Earth.
It is not an expensive unfinished jigsaw, nor bland corporate dross. It is not the lazy creation of ad men with no hint at our sporting or cultural heritage. And it is not pretentious tripe shot from a committee’s collective arse.
So in this Londoner’s opinion the new Olympic logo is fantastic – and it is certainly better than the ugly Houses of Parliament and the awful Big Ben that we used as our symbol in 1948.
New logo and launch video here: http://www.london2012.com/about-newlook-video.html
Stumble It!
51 comments:
Oh my dog. It's one of those puzzles, isn't it? Don't you feel an overwhelming urge to drag and drop all the sections? 'Assemble these pieces to form a hexagon in no more than 5 moves...'
When I first saw that logo at the top of the page I thought old marg, was taking the piss. Then I clicked the link to find it is fair dinkum (translation from Oz to English - real).
Mum, always said if you can't say anything nice say nothing at all. For once I'm going to heed her advice.
Iwas watching the launch of this live. At the end the BBC asked for people to text in their views.
The presenters were really embarassed as only on person (out og dog knows how many) was even close to positive.
They've since been out on the streets interviewing, not one person has been positive.
But it's okay - as everyone in the hall where it was launched was "really positive".
The brand director came on stage and explained that they have spent more than a year working on this.
"I was meant to to spend months on this, but decided to spend the drunk and take a lot of coke instead. Then I woke up on a pub bench yesterday and somone had done some grafiti and I thought, fuck it, that'll do," he didn't say.
Although "children have been involved".
Unsurprising as it looks like it was done by a five year old.
The old logo was fine.
"2012 is more than the games - it's a number, a number that is already out there," Seb Coe explained. Yes, like 17, 20342, 8, and 72.
What says Olympics like a broken pink swastika?
The old logo was classy, I thought.
This is all going to happen down the road from where I live, so that stupid thing is going to be plastered all over the neighbourhood (the logo not the designer, though probably in fact both)for the next five years...
looks like a cryptic swastika to me
new socialism anyone?
I quite like it, but dont know why it's pink. The launch video is quite snazzy but it has lots of colours.
This is a viral ad surely?
The heirs of the KLF are behind it.
Nothing surprises me in the world of design.
There's some very good stuff here
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/06/04/londons_new_brand_of_bother.html
Heard them talking about this on R5 a bit earlier. Saw this and thought it must be a joke. Seems not. Having heard some very clever people saying they see merit in it, I think I'd best reserve judgement and ponder a wee while.
Hum!
mimi
as a very clever person I implore you to judge harshly. If only because the idea that only very clever people get it reaks of the Empreror's new clothes.
Zeph
Hello Neighbour - I'm going to start selling sunglasses in Stratford to help people cope with the glare.
Margin - you can pitch your stall underneath that clock at Stratford Bus Station that counts down the time till the Olympics, except that everyone's forgotten already that that's what it's for...
Margin,
it's ZZ from London going to the Olympics-
What I like: it's young and casual and reflective of the freedom felt today by graphic designers.
What I don't:it's not powefully evocative as such logo should be for this event-
typic case where the message may have been dumped in the name of creativity.
Zeph
They didn't forget - they just realised the clock was in fact several weeks slow.
gg
As the ad man who launched it said on stage "it isn't corporate" and maybe that's the problem.
Companies are focused on getting specific results - and london is full of companies that dominate the output of our designers and ad men. So give london ad men a rare chance to disregard results and it goes to their heads and they come up with this.
If you flip the thing with the rings in it and squint very hard it kinda looks like austrailia, likewise the thing next to it with a LOT of imagination could look like Britain, sans Wales and Norfolk and a squeezed Scotland.
So my brain is rather fried, but thats was my first impression!
Ah, sunny Stratford... where time stands still...
A sterling chap called Jonathan Ellis has started an online petition at:
http://www.gopetition.co.uk/petitions/change-the-london-2012-logo.html
4656 signatures last time I looked.
Right on second look the "shapes" are actually numbers -2012.
Sorry to spoil the randomness
That petition is good - but there are at least two on the 10 Downing street website.
Neither is live yet (awaiting clearance from the No 10 web team) - but take it from me at least one is good [nudge, nudge, wink wink).
2012-pasta bravo for reading between the lines,-
but the numbers were lost in the translation,- artsie, fartsie doesn't makes an impact-
It lacks some athletic feeling, it's not sporty and too feminine (sorry girls).
However with time and people getting used to it, their first negative impression may be fading.
Wasn't trying to prevaricate, just be measured and not rush to judgement in an ill-conceived rush of urgh. Thanks for the translation pasta - can see it easily now. Also just watched the launch vid in full, and to be honest, I think it's a bit rubbish really. Like a designer has just laid hands on a new bit of software and flails around a bit with it.
The jury's still out here. Maybe it'll grow on me ....
just in case there\'s anyone here who is shunning GU, the revelation that it\'s actually lisa simpson on the right might be enlightening
and a stout chap called jeffreyfourmile has even posted the designers address:
hello@wolffolins.com
Shunning GU? File, whatever gave you pause to have such a thought?!
mimi,
it\'s, broadly speaking, possible, isn\'t it?
It is a logo that needs to move, and it will have plenty of opportunity to do so. And I think I heard it wont always be pink.
There are very few memorable logos from Olympics past. I had a look at a few ( http://www.sportslogos.net/annuals.php?season=1968&l=27&Submit=Go ) and only Helsinki and Mexico really stood out. If anything this one is not radical enough.
If nothing else, this one has provoked a reaction of some sort. So the ad men win this round. It will remain laughable only if the rest of what we do for the Olympics is also laughable.
We're going to fuck this up aren't we?
I quite like it. It's like a big pink bear fishing in the river. Thumbs up from me.
BD, you and I should have done the launch.
BD: if I were a betting woman ... yes, we'll bollocks it one way or another. However, Dorney Lake's been up and running (if you can say that about a stretch of water) for over a year now, so we'll do OK at the rowing. And if we can get the velodrome built, it'll be fine for the cyclists. They can bung the horse-riding bods to any of 3 world-class facilities and I think the yachty stuff is sorted down Southampton way. So all the sitting-down sports that we do well at are covered. Oh and apparently they've already tried out the archery at Lord's. What a relief. Just the all important swimming, track and field, that we're rubbish at anyway will be a fiasco!
Andrewm, big pink bear? Mind you, it took me twenty minutes to see that it said 2012.
On the video there's a moment when it's multi-coloured, when it looks a lot better, but then it goes back to the flat single colours again.
They could have done that whole video using the 'ribbon' from the other logo instead of the coloured zigzags and it would have been fine.
zeph, you've clearly got the two legs at the bottom, crouching above the river; the pointy snout below the rings, sniffing those lovely salmon (you can tell it's looking down at them as well); the tummy in the middle, rumbling away no doubt, and of course the big London arm raised for another swipe at those pesky slippery fish.
First thing I thought of when I saw it.
Hell, that says "The city of LOHN-DOHN" to me, I'll tell you.
Well, Andrew, if you say so. Perhaps we should replace the lions in Trafalgar Square with large pink bears, to continue the theme?
By god that's awful. Why are both the 2's different? Why haven't they used the colours of the rings to brighten it up a bit?
I used to work in a place that had a feng-shuied (spelling?) 'calming room' where stress-heads could go to chill out and everything in it was that colour as apparently it's associated with tranquility. Maybe it's a pre-emptive strike by the organisers to ease some worried minds?
Can't we fill the Olympic rings with faces that represent London, specifically its East End?
Queen Mum in the middle, flanked by George Galloway and Oswald Mosley with Ron and Reg flanking them?
Works for me.
it's the old ZZ top Downunder banner third draft....
Wot, mouth, no ring for Babs Windsor?
For some reason I feel the need to mention the Millennium Dome. Grandiose, well-orchestrated spectacle not what London does best.
BD, thanks for the link to the logos page, I enjoyed that (although the Slovenian FA has me mystified).
De nada Munni. That site is strangely captivating isnt it?
The thing with the London 2012 logo is that if you do the usual everyone shrugs. I do think we could have done better but dull would have been worse.
munni
The Dome was fantastic - around 7million people went and around 6.9million had a great time.
what we learned from the Dome was that its a bad idea to pay a fortune for a Grandiose, well-orchestrated spectacle - even if the spectacle itself was brilliant.
Margin - we also learned that it is a bad idea to leave all the journalists standing around for half an hour on a train (DLR) platform with nothing more than a plastic cup of bad warm white wine then hope for a decent write up.
The difference here is that the media bought into it (Look, it's Tony Blair, Jose Mourihno, Lord Coe, an Popular Atheletes telling us it's great - so it must be) then the public backlash started and the media outlets changed their tune.
yuck
ebren
ah yes - the lesson of spin - Labour failed miserably to control the media agenda and to play to media egos.
Instead of the standard big limo and free champers they were given a taste of what it is to be a member of the public - by getting them on public transport.
and the media hated it.
Margin, my love, as we both know journalists love free stuff and get bitter when that free stuff is taken away.
And frankly, I prefer chauffer-driven limos and ice-cold bolly to the DLR and warm Asda-own-brand chardonnay.
Who wouldn't?
At least they're not taking backhanders directly and still slate stuff that deserves it (if less than they should).
We should worry more when they are scared/prevented from criticising.
I'm the first to defend the right of hacks to free stuff - or maybe second behind your good self.
But in light of criticising that which deserves it - surely credit where credit is due is just as important a principle?
Mis-shapes, mistakes. OK I've had time to think about this, and excuse my foul-mouth, but it's a pile of wank. It really is. It's not clever, funny or innovative. It's a silly young designer running wild with a ton of unaccountable money and some new software. It says nothing about the aspirations of what young athletes should be dreaming of for 2012. It's just rubbish. Waste of money forfend - it's a public disgrace that they, whoever "they2 really are can do this.
hooray - I knew Mimi would come around.
huzzah for free stuff
a crate of 12 bottles of wine has just arrived for me at my desk.
I'm a lovely hypocrit...
22 comments on Steve Cram's GU thread. 46 (now 47!)here!
A triumph for Lord Ebren - not that we compare ourselves to them or anything!
actually, they had an article yesterday that went to 3-figures. We can't claim a victory in numerical terms.
I think Linford Christie's lunchbox would do the jobwith a pic of someone injecting steroids for good measure.
we always win on quality - and that's what really matters.
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