London 2012 new logo branding – this is how we look to the world

Published by neil on June 4th, 2007 9 Comments »

Yup, you got it. This gawd-awful piece of creative spewing is how the rest of the world will see our handling of the 2012 Olympics.

Now I may not be some spiky-haired, Gucci bespectacled, no-sock-wearing agency creative, but I’ve done my time with them developing brand solutions (mainly for b2b). I know when it’s right, and I know this is way off the mark. Can we use the word minger in relation to a logo?

I can almost see how this developed, though. I suspect one of the primary challenges of creating such a brand would be to ensure that no element of the design creates inadvertent offence to any other country or culture. Admittedly, that can be a tricky one. But this is a cop-out solution to that problem. This looks like the kind of design which was latched onto the presentation to convince the client that the agency was earning its fee and to make the other designs look good – standard tactic for those of you outside the business. Unfortunately for the sporting world, the sharp-suited account exec spotted a glimmer of positive reaction in the client’s eye and sold it hard.

From the blurb: “The new emblem is dynamic, modern and flexible. It will work with new technology and across traditional and new media networks.” What this smacks of is suited management-led new media designers with little or no genuine understanding about how to leverage new media while retaining old media compatibility. I imagine the thought process: “We also need to reproduce this in print?”, the Creative Director exclaims in bewilderment, “better make it flat colour then.” Oh how many times I’ve heard that. Yeah, I know, showing my age now – but sorry, there’s no excuse at this level. When you get branding right, you don’t need BS creative justification, the brand communicates its own message.
What this logo communicates to me…

London 2012: enabling a diversity of peoples to come together – but ends up just a miss-matched, ill-fitting jumble of something not immediately discernible.

At least they didn’t end up the paddle-less creeks these guys navigated (thanks to jEN for the links):
Arlington Pediatric Center
Brazil’s Instituto de Estudos Orientais

UPDATE: The more I look at this thing, the more I’m beginning to think this might be a hoax/publicity stunt (please!). Anyway, looks like  there’s a petition going to get it changed. It’s locked now but earlier (around 7pm on Mon June 4) it was rapidly heading towards 9,000 signatures.

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