The London 2012 Olympic Committee logo. Released last week to critical acclaim (lighter on the ‘acclaim’, heavier on the ‘critical’), so far it’s been variously described as ‘a dodgy set of legwarmers‘, ‘a pink day-glo pig’s abortion of a logo‘ and ‘Lisa Simpson performing an obscene act‘. Doesn’t the blogosphere love a good furore?
My personal theory is it will gradually break down and recombine into the Iron Maiden logo. I can’t prove anything yet, but I think we know who’ll be playing that opening ceremony.
So, what do you think? Maybe you’re thinking to yourself ‘It’s rubbish,.. I could do better in 15 minutes!’ .
Well, here is your chance to heap glory upon yourself and make a play for a tasty $800 prize while you’re at it.
Training Camp, a London-based training company is currently holding a SitePoint Contest to find a better Olympic logo design, and they’ve backed it up with an impressive $800 prize.
Impressive ‘money where your mouth is’ work from the Training Camp guys there.
Their only major prerequisite is that ‘it should not look like you dropped a cheap, garish plate with the words “London” “2012″ and “Olympics” written on it’. A reasonable request by most standards, I would think.
Already there are some promising alternatives.
View all the latest entries here, and if you’re creatively inclined, grab a pencil and get a’doodlin’.
I’m really looking forward to following this over the next few weeks.
There are gonna be more entries to this contest than the actual games…
June 8th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
The original logo is awful lol! I almost coughed on my crumpets when I woke up one early morning last week and saw it on the BBC website :p
June 8th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
To me, the shapes in the logo look like North America, South America, Europe/Asia and Africa – and I’m guess the islandy bit is Australia?
I can see what they were after with the logo, represent the globe and make it look like the number ‘2012′ – and I have to say it’s actually quite creative and something I’ve never seen before.
The other logos look like “been there done that” – I mean, the olympic rings over St. Paul’s? Two swooshy stripes with the word “London 2012″.
I’m pretty sure I’m in the minority here though :D
June 9th, 2007 at 2:25 am
There obviously were far too many salesmen in the room when this logo got approved. I can’t believe how bad it is.
June 9th, 2007 at 3:45 am
ok, lets make some oposition. i think design of the offical logo has a lot of advantage in therms of graphical evolution. it represets good quality, and concept, breaking convetions of ‘nice’ boring logos like presented below. and maybe theres also ac/dc inside representing australia?
June 9th, 2007 at 7:49 am
lol well it is fugly but at least the entire world is talking about it :)
June 12th, 2007 at 8:09 am
pixelsoul is right, they’re at least getting great marketing over it. If entrants of the sitepoint contest want to get more exposure for their logo they can submit it to this site I found:
http://www.betterlondonlogo.com
The next five years could prove to be pretty interesting.
June 15th, 2007 at 6:26 am
I believe there is a difference between designing a logo that’s professional/simple and a logo that’s evolutionary/convention breaking. In this case the logo should be 90% professional/simple and 10% evolutionary. The current logo has this ratio the other way around. Any other of the designs at http://www.betterlondonlogo.com/londonlogo-app/displayHome.do would be better than the current iteration as they ooze more professionalism while remaining straightforward to look at.
My first impressions of the Sitepoint London 2012 logo told me that it was a complete joke. Not only was it amateurish, it looks like someone designed this intoxicated because it does not represent style in today’s standards. I believe someone has taken the term “graphical evolution” too seriously. Obviously the concept was great but unfortunately they have completely missed the mark with this design.
Maybe in 2012 it will be a benchmark for logo design and graphical evolution?
June 19th, 2007 at 10:30 am
When is Sitepoint revamping their brand ID?
June 19th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Yeah it is shocking, posted my thought on over at my blog (germworks.net/blog). Seems that everyone does not like it, except ghuytro.
I see Australia as the zero but I do not see the other countries…
June 20th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Oppps sorry about the above post…
I did not sign in (first time using this blog) and the link was not right either..
should have been: http://germworks.net/blog/2007/06/13/london-2012-olympics-logo
Sorry :(
June 20th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
I think my neighbour’s great grandfather made the original logo, he used the edge of a book when his stencils broke. The colors match the Sitepoint design, yet more evidence that ten percent of men are colorblind.
The contest is a great idea. Almost all of the alternatives are much nicer. You’ve got to work hard to make a logo that bad.
June 22nd, 2007 at 11:39 pm