Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. A successful logo should at least give some hint at the activities of the organisation it is meant to depict. This looks like the logo for the Annual Rabbit Shagging Championships.
UPDATE: A correspondent rings to tell me that this logo has been 'work in progress' for none months at the advertising agency Wolff Ollins. Indeed, it was so secret that they had a vaulted room in which the design took place. The room had a door with a keycode on it. Any guesses as to what the four figure code was? Yup, 2012. I get the feeling that someone gained access and put a virus in the computers...
UPDATE: I couldn't possibly
Yuk.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was about promoting London! But it's barely legible - what a joke (on us, sadly, at £500k for the design fee!).
ReplyDeleteCan we just give the games to Sydney on a free transfer? Please?? They are going to be five years of ongoing national embarassment.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't be bothered to find a doe (or a Coe) if this were the logo.
ReplyDeleteThis is similiar to a piece of pink bubble gum I saw trodden into the pavement the other day.
ReplyDeleteThe Olympics is an outrageous waste of money. My dearest wish is that we come bottom in everything.
ReplyDeleteI like it. It is not twee which is most important and it brands 2012 as a trendy young person's thing. That's good isn't it?
ReplyDeleteWell done for being brave Olympo-bosses. Retired Majors - Be cool.
The BBC's comments site is already censoring descriptions of the logo as "Lisa Simpson Giving Head".
ReplyDeleteWhich, though predictable, is a shame, because once you look at it with this in mind, you'll NEVER be able to see it any other way!
This all wrong though it look as if the Olympics is administering oral relief to London. Its the other way round ...in more ways than one .
ReplyDeleteAssume the position tax payer
82% hate to 18% like on BBC page
ReplyDeletefrom 6100 votes :)
Is this a joke? - it screams the London Olympics is broken
ReplyDeleteBlimey that absolute crap! Whats it supposed to be? How come tax payers money has been wasted on this rubbish? Is it to late to give it the boot ??-it actually vaguely resembles a pair of cartoon boots...
ReplyDeleteAwful truely awful. Typical New Labours Cool Britania view of the UK, nothing to show our nations colours(no flag in the background).
ReplyDeleteI hate it. And it cost £400,000
I thought the one with LONDON 2012, the Olympic rings and the Thames motif was rather good.
ReplyDeleteYou would think that the LOCOG would be looking at ways to save money not fritter it away!
Can't make anything of it at all. How can this possibly have cost so much money? It looks like something a child's cooked up with WordArt in a spare five minutes.
ReplyDeletePerhaps every copy of it comes complete with official PR spinmeistress to explain WTF it's meant to represent.
Yes it's rubbish, but then these logos tend to be rubbish anyway. The ones for the last few games have been better, but not by much.
ReplyDeleteI'll be interested to see what the mascots look like. They can't be worse than the Athens ones - cuddly triangles.
And it looks a bit better in blue than it does in pink.
FANTASTIC NOW I HAVE SEEN A GENERIC PURPLE SPLODGE I JUST CAN`T WAIT
ReplyDeleteIn the logo I can see a "map" of Britain, a "map" of Australia and two other "islands". What are they?
ReplyDeleteLook closely and you will see that it depicts three syringes and a pill bottle.
ReplyDeleteThe winner of the Annual Bunny Shagging Championships is pictured here.
ReplyDeleteThere's already an E-petition against it! Not that anyone'll take notice even if it gets 1.8 million signatures.
ReplyDeleteI fear anon 4.03pm is only too correct. It'll turn into a vulgar joke worldwide.
Lisa Simpson apart, all I can see here is a rather burly chap wiping his backside on rising from the toilet. (Did Prezza have a hand in it?)
ReplyDeleteWho were the PR company responsible and then shouldn't the actual designer be outed and shamed?
ReplyDeleteit would be laughable if it wasn't so sad.
ReplyDeleteThis logo will represent us to teh world for the next five years.
Why do these suity tossers have the insane desire to screw everything upo for the rest of us?
Is this another Seb Coe special? Remember that his last attempt to appeal to the yoof vote was putting William Hague in a baseball cap...
ReplyDeleteCan we look forward to the News of the World getting a couple of 'lurex lovelies' giving their interpretation of the 'Lisa Simpson giving head' idea ?
ReplyDeleteAnd how long before a condom company sponsors the splodge in the centre ?
It has something of the Berlin 1936 about it...
ReplyDeleteDid they break it?
ReplyDeleteYou have at least used the version I sent you.
ReplyDeletehttp://theospark.blogspot.com/2007/06/london-olympics-logo.html
I much prefer Theo Spark's version of this logo. So much more 'dynamic', I think.
ReplyDeletehttp://theospark.blogspot.com/
David, now you come to mention it, it looks a bit like Daniel Libeskind's Jewish museum in Berlin.
ReplyDeletehttp://homepage.mac.com/fumill/.Pictures/ZNO/jewish.jpg
But a lot more rubbish.
They could have paid me £500,000 to do the logo. I could have cried a better logo than that rubbish!
ReplyDelete"looks like the logo for the Annual Rabbit Shagging Championships"
ReplyDeleteNot, one trusts, a T-shirt in one's cupboard?
They should have held a competition for the best logo, instead of just handing such lucrative work to their buddies.
ReplyDeleteI could have done it for £395k!
And I suppose the stap line was "Well F**k me!"
ReplyDeleteBrilliant parody, doubt it'll be the last we see of these! - http://www.pickinglosers.co.uk/node/689
ReplyDeleteWhat a waste of money!!!
ReplyDeleteAs you say Iain - it's suggestive. Were the designers on £400k worth of Columbian special?
I have just heard someone say that it looks like a Nazi motif and is clearly anti-semitic. Did Ken approve it one wonders?
ReplyDelete"has been 'work in progress' for none months"
ReplyDeleteThat nOne months was obviously worth it !
Alan Douglas
The rabbit-shagging logo is certain NOT a landmark in brand management, either for London or the Olympics.
ReplyDeleteHaven't seen the Thames logo mentioned in post above, but does sound interesting.
What about using the Thames as an element, along with the Olympic rings . . . with the London Eye forming one of the rings?
If my suggestion is adopted, someone please let me know how to collect my commission . . . promise to donate half of it to the Barking Home for Vicious Pit Bulls; could use the inmates as starters for the track & field events . . . thus guaranteeing some record-breaking times . . .
The most popular blog-o-sphere look-a-likes seems to be the SS symbol, giving head, and Australia breaking up the British Isles.
ReplyDeleteIn all seriousness, for five years, this logo (sorry, "brand") will represent London, and the UK, in every nation on earth. And it's a clump of shattered dog biscuits.
What a waste of money.
Agencies are always looking to sell this type of thing to clients as it is a difficult graphic to implement. Every single item will need its own design solution. In short, the agency will be billing for ongoing work on this ID for the next 5 years. Clever clients know the agency game and don't get into this type of situation.
ReplyDeleteIs the intention that the shapes can be re-arranged into something meaningful or vaguely recognisable in terms of the Olympics?
ReplyDeleteI think this is diabolical - but I also thought that about the new Conservative logo and it has grown on me- so maybe...(although I doubt it).
ReplyDeleteclearly in the wrong business - all my years of medical training and I could have done this!!
That is a deconstructed but still wholly obvious swastika.
ReplyDeleteThe various levels of insult and repellent reference are quite mind-boggling.
It has nothing to do with me
ReplyDeleteIf anyone says thats me sh****** Tracey, I'll sue them.
ReplyDeletePlease can someone tell me what it is supposed to represent?
ReplyDeleteI have looked at it from right, from left and upside down - is it supposed to be one of those ink blobs so loved in psychological tests?
I am truly perplexed!
'Work in progress for none months'
ReplyDeleteExplains it all well enough.
Ken must have sniggered when he saw this. Definitely one in the eye for his sworn enemies in North London.
ReplyDeleteBut why not just give the Olympic games back to their rightful owners.
ReplyDeleteWould it be Sooo bad for the Athletic types to assemble in Greece every four years?
I can think of far worse places for them to meet up and London is one of the worst.
How come all those sporty and political types were full of media type shite today? That Logo is absolutely Dire.
WTF does failed Tory MP Seb Coe Know about graphic design and corporate branding? Jowell and Coe should be taken off the olympic project NOW before it all turns to RATSH1TE.
Are New Labour wooing UKIP by using their colours?
ReplyDeleteMaybe they're predicting Londoners will return a UKIP GLA?
ReplyDeleteTo paraphrase the excellent Dylan Moran - you could get a broom, dip it in some brake fluid and shove the other end up my arse, and then stick me on a trampoline in a moving lift and I could draw a better logo on the walls!
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to see you're revisiting the Great Olympic Swindle at long last, Iain. Was this why you were so in favour of tax money being used to bail it out?
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile on a planet much nearer home, realists are thinking that the Olympic gravy train is going to hit the buffers long before 2012. Let's all adjust to the fact that it ain't gonna happen, cut our losses and let some other city bankrupt itself.
My first reaction will probably be the same as everybody else - IT'S CRAP.
ReplyDeleteOnline pettion to change the logo
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gopetition.co.uk/petitions/change-the-london-2012-logo.html
11913 Signatures on the petition already.
ReplyDeleteYep, that's a swastika
ReplyDeletethis just smacks of Nu Labour gravy train.
ReplyDeletewhy didnt they get the schools of the UK involved, and have a competition - with the winning logo voted Big Brother style by the general public?
Newsnight have mentioned "Lisa Simpson" in their opening credits... oh dear. this isnt boding too well for the Olympics themselves, if they can get a logo so badly wrong.
Rabbit shagging?
ReplyDeleteElsewhere on the interweb people are saying this looks like Lisa Simpson giving Homer a hummer and it took me quite a while to see that, myself.
But rabbit shagging?
I take my hat off to the breadth (and splendid depravity) of your imagination, sir.
Well, people appear to be inspired by the graphic design...not all those pics are worksafe... some are somewhat X-rated, so any shrinking violets(M or f), please don't click on those links:
ReplyDeletehttp://forum.globalhousepricecrash.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=1346
http://www.b3ta.com/board/popular/
http://b3ta.smakkie.com/olympicslogo.gif
We need a law that says that any public logo (re)design cannot cost more than one weeks average salary for a graphic designer!
Dreadful post-modern identityless shitte! Exactly what you'de expect from the cultural phillistines of the multi-cult New Left.
ReplyDeleteBritain doesn't mean anything - so how could the deisgners design a concept for it.
ReplyDeleteAs a Welshman I'd much prefere the 2012 Oplympics to be England's Olympics. There'd be 3 teams from the UK ... and a logo which meant something.
The UK and Russia play these diplomatic games every now and then, they are nothing out of the ordinary in the relationship between the two states.
ReplyDeletePutin is posturing for the sake of Russian internal politics. Russia needs its links with west so outside of its backyard it will be all noise and no bite.
"I thought this was about promoting London! But it's barely legible..."
ReplyDeleteThat's OK, quite in line with the government campaign to make London barely literate.
I'm sure I've seen this sort of thing on one of those fascist-dominated worlds visited by Captain Kirk and the starship Enterprise.
ReplyDeleteI like the London 20120 logo, I think when you compare it to the previous Olympic logos it really stands out!
ReplyDeletePersonally I think it looks like a design from a 1980's shell suit.
ReplyDeleteThere were various designs sent in to the BBC Breakfast programme this morning and one was infinitely superior to this ridiculous logo.
ReplyDeleteIf it was private money that paid for this, I hope the companies concerned are demanding their money back.
I also agree that there should be a permanent site for the Olympics.
Animated clip of logo now pulled from 2012 website after complaints of people suffering fits induced by watching it!
ReplyDeleteLooks like Tony Blair piddling into Margaret Thatcher's lap.
ReplyDeleteAs I say in my own blog, the Olympic logo should inspire. Yet I find myself looking at something not dissimilar to the admittedly accomplished doodling which, in the mid-1980s, used to grace the covers of the notebooks of my then 14 year old cousin. It is all very Blondie, Tiswas and Swap Shop. Indeed, the video that acted as the vehicle for the launch of this new logo, and which featured multi-coloured shards erupting through council estates and parks all over London, resembles the sort of low budget television programme one would watch on Children's BBC circa 1987.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bloggingyoungfogey.blogspot.com
Well, i scratched up a design under 20 minutes...nothing great, but perhaps you might want to take a look.
ReplyDeletehttp://gadgit.vox.com/library/post/london-2012-logo.html