The debate over the 2012 Olympics logo rumbles on, and try as I might, I can’t help but side with the critics, of which there are many.
I’ve read and digested Coudal’s lengthy and well argued defence, and even agree with many of the points it makes. But it doesn’t make me like it any more. According to Chris, this makes me a ‘fuckwit who knows nothing about design’. I can live with that. 99.9% of the world’s population know nothing about design, so I’m in good company.
I know nothing about chocolate, beer, or the process of making music, except what I like and don’t like. Why should design be any different?
It’s irrelevant whether the logo is technically well-designed or not. What matters, as with all brands, is the emotional response it elicits, and the emotional response to the 2012 logo has been almost entirely negative. Yes, some of that can be put down to the cynicism that seems to accompany anything Olympics-related, but most of it is down to the fact that Joe Public just doesn’t like it. And that’s a problem. It’s a problem because the logo was paid for with public money and it’s a problem because what this Olympics needs more than anything else is public support.
The massive under-estimation of the cost of the whole exercise, the fact that it’s London-based, and the deep suspicion that accompanies anything so closely related to Tony Blair have all undermined efforts to get the Great British Public behind the 2012 Games. The logo was a chance to redress the balance, to give the masses something with which we could identify. That chance has been lost.
It may be that given time we’ll come to like the pink and yellow spiky thing, but what kind of brand manager wants to go around telling potential customers that if they only give themselves time to get used to it they will eventually come to identify and love the brand?
To me, the reaction to the 2012 logo is reminiscent of the reaction to British Airways decision to move away from the red, white and blue colour scheme on the tails of its planes, in favour of designs which represented the flags of different countries. It was well-intentioned, well-executed, but very poorly received. Whatever the reason behind the response in that case, it damaged the brand and BA was forced to revert back to a more ‘traditional’ design. The 2012 organisers may not have that option, for them it is already too late.
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2 responses so far ↓
1 Christopher Phin // Jun 11, 2007 at 9:35 pm
I hated the logo too when I first saw it, and it still jars when I see it. Part of that, though, is a learned response: recent Olympic logos have tended towards anodyne swooshes and inoffensive primary colours. But I am not arguing that the mousy approach is worse or better than the ballsy one. It may well be that this is a terrible, terrible logo, and one of the major contributing factors to that is one that you and others have identified; that a logo supposed to unite a people has in fact divided them (albeit into two very unequal sized chunks).
The thing I object to is silly little people opening up Paint, scrawling a few lines, and saying that they’ve done the same thing as the designers of the Olympic logo. Bollocks. A single logo does not equate an entire corporate identity system, nor has it been tested in different media. (And I accept unreservedly the legitimacy of concerns over strobing lights prompting fitting.)
It fair buggers the mind to think that people seriously devalue the process of design so much that they think £400k is a preposterous sum of money to spend on developing an identity system; it’s a complex dance, and it frustrates me no end that people see A Logo and think that’s the job done right there.
Gah. I shouldn’t care so much. As a designer friend once said: disengage…
2 Kenny // Jun 11, 2007 at 10:19 pm
I agree that the ‘I could do better’ response is puerile and that £400k is remarkably little to spend on a brand of this importance (perhaps that’s part of the problem).
I also accept that what I find aesthetically pleasing might not be consistent with the aims of the 2012 committee. But I can’t help but feel that in the desire to be ‘edgy’ enough to appeal to the youth of 2007, the importance of inclusiveness has been forgotten. If an Olympic Games is about anything, it’s about reaching out to everyone in society and communicating a set of ideals. The logo fails spectacularly to do that.
On another note, there’s a very neat demonstration of the identity design process in Mike Rohde’s blog, where he talks about the logo he designed for Paul Stamatiou.
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