without thought

A new angle

Following an article I read there recently on the Creative Review’s blog which features full time protagonist Adrian Shaughnessy, I was inspired to reconsider the much vilified London Olympics logo for 2012. In his article, Shaughnessy visits the offices of Wolff Olins (the company responsible) and is pleasantly surprised and even won over

“Having written disparagingly about the London 2012 logo, I expected to be treated like a tramp on the tube with poor personal hygiene. Far from it. Chairman Brian Boylan and creative director Patrick Cox were friendly and discussed what I’d written with calm objectivity.

[...] I even found myself reassessing that logo. I still think it’s a mistake, but my gripe with it has always been aesthetic [...] And yet, the Web 2.0 philosophy that underpins it—users are encouraged to make their own versions of it—is inspirational, and a blast of freshness into the airless world of stodgy brand thinking.”

Boylan and Cox obviously still stand behind their work and explain how they see brands working today

“Our view of branding, is that the brand is no longer a single neat and tidy logo that you stick in the same place every time. Our thinking of brand has moved on. The brand is the platform, the brand is flexible, the brand is a place of exchange, and it is not fixed, ”

The amount of negative press the logo has received since its unveiling has been ever so slightly OTT and runs along the lines of ‘I could have done better myself’; and people claim they have!

Meanwhile, on the site underconsideration, there is a more balanced discussion in place, one which is slightly less reactionary than the default response: yuk!

“Part of the problem is that the logo comes with too much hyperbole, rhetoric, metaphors and inflationist meanings”

Yes, those inflated meanings. But inflated, pompous language is the parlance of every design rational; nothing new there. Perhaps the horrified reactions are more to do with the fact that WolfOllins and the Olympic committee have failed to deliver on peoples expectations.

The Olympics is essentially a modernist event. One which preaches international unity, good sportsmanship and social betterment. After all it was the Nazis who designed the initial Olympic symbol (dab hands at modernist design themselves). But what’s truly missing here (in my opinion) is the modesty that we so readily associate with the Olympic brand. The London marque has far too much of an opinion on itself. It is too brazen, too over stated, too self conscious to ever be adopted by the average punter. And it is missing that other crucial factor; the fabled ‘Stickiness’.

As much as I appreciate Wolff Olins concept behind the brand and how brands may or may not be going forward, I feel that this marque is a poor visual execution of what could otherwise be a very imaginative and exciting campaign.

Events such as the Olympics should inspire involvement. They should be inclusive and far reaching. But there is something about the jagged lines and sharp edges of the current identity that has prevented anybody from doing so thus far.