Tue 5 Jun 2007
The new logo for the 2012 Olympics in London was revealed today.

A jigsaw with the Olympic and 2012.
Ugly. And its part of £500,000 spending!!
27 Responses to “Olympic 2012 terrible logo”
Leave a Reply
Visitor stats
-
user(s) online
so far

June 5th, 2007 at 10:04 am
That is disgusting for a sports event. It’s not the gay parade, that just screams “Fab power~!”. Having rainbows would’ve been manlier.
Reminds me of McD’s happy meal, weirdly enough.
June 5th, 2007 at 10:32 am
if you put the piece together, what do you get?
June 5th, 2007 at 10:37 am
Biohazard, i get the first part of your comment, but a happy meal?? where did you get ur happy meals from?
Purg, u get ugly
June 5th, 2007 at 10:54 am
Ok, I love it. I was expecting the usual cliche olympic logo when I clicked your link on safat but this is cool. i am surprised they actually went with it, its not a safe design at all. good stuff.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Mark, it might seem cool now with the whole 80’s fashion comeback…but in 5 years how cool will the 80’s theme be?? Also, why be so edgy and pick something that will make alot of ppl not like it when its such a global event!
June 5th, 2007 at 11:16 am
because its England! the logo shouldn’t be global it should be localized and the English are very serious when it comes to design. The perfect example would be the underground. From the logo to the map to the user interfaces on the ticket machines. The people love good design and appreciate it.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:16 am
[…] just found out from Kuwaitism’s blog that the new 2012 Summer Olympics logo was just launched and I love it! Its extremely unique, comes […]
June 5th, 2007 at 11:48 am
OH MY GOD IT’S TERRIBLE!!!!!
How did the IOC let them get away with NOT using the 5 olympic colors?!
And it already looks dated, how will it look in 2012??
June 5th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
الانجليز مو صاحيين
بديت اكرههم من الثوارة اللي نازلة عليهم مؤخرا
خاصة سالفة تكت الباصات
June 5th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Actually, I can tell you that most Londoners that I have encountered are disappointed with it - including many in design fields. This logo says absolutely nothing about London as a city. I like the idea of breaking the mould and taking a risk, especially since that is what London is all about. So I certainly think a stereotypical logo that would use the London Eye or Big Ben would have been much worse. But at the same time, this design in no way captures the real vibe of London and its people. I was expecting that when they unveiled the logo to us, it would be something that would immediately make us FEEL the city we live in. Yes, the English are VERY serious when it comes to design. And the fact that in immediate polls taken yesterday more than 80% said they hated it speaks volumes.
Besides which, as Q said, this is a branding concept that is going to be forced to define London for the next five years, as well as in the new Olympic city they’re building, which will last forever! Furthermore, the concept or “message” that they are trying to convey with their new branding really doesn’t fit with the logo at all.
I posted about this yesterday and I had said that although my initial reaction is to hate it, as a Londoner myself I have decided to give this logo the benefit of the doubt and see how the whole branding evolves. I am still very open to be convinced that my initial instincts about the logo were wrong!
June 5th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
It’s a combination of the yellow and the olympic circles thingy and the kiddy font. Reminded me of my snack happy meals..
It hardly projects sport and competition. It has the “we’re all winners..” theme.
Are you sure it’s not the special olympics logo, Q?
June 5th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
I am sure it matches together in some form.
June 5th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
thats pretty piss poor actually.
then again, its not that surprising that it cost that much.
a few years ago the BBC wanted to redo their logo.
paid some firm a couple million pounds.
and they said hey why not just used the same old one from the 60’s, you know, the black boxes with the white font.
and someone at the BBC said well done!
this logo reminds me of libeskinds V&A extension.
June 5th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Oh my god, Skunk, you’re right! It does look like “The Spiral”! Hadn’t thought of that before. Although I liked the Spiral…
June 5th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Read all about it here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6719805.stm
Skunk… you’re right. Very Libeskind, although I would’ve said his Jewish Museum in Berlin
June 5th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
From the article Zaydoun linked to above: “Branding expert Jonathan Gaby says the youth market is the most sophisticated of them all and it takes more than jagged writing to make something ‘edgy’. This insults the intelligence of Londoners, he says.”
Amen. Nobody is against the logo being edgy and innovative and risky. In fact, that’s what London wanted! But this just doesn’t cut it.
June 5th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
the logo is getting a lot of negative reaction and 80% of the people do hate the logo but thats never been a good basis to judge art.
June 5th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
would everyone also take a second to check out the Beijing logo
http://images.beijing-2008.org/img051027/logo.gif
now check out the London one
http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/archives/london2012_logo.gif
June 5th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
No a public poll is certainly not a good basis for judging art - you’re absolutely right on that. But at the end of the day, the main premise behind the whole London 2012 branding is that they want it to be “Everyone’s Games”. If that’s the main thrust behind their whole identity, then it sure sucks that 80% of “everyone” hates their design.
June 5th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Anyway, within the past 24 hours in London I’ve gotten so used to seeing this logo that dare I say, it’s starting to grow on me…? Or maybe it’s just that I’m getting used to it. My goodness, what’s going to happen in five years?!
Well I won’t be living here then but still…
June 5th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
I like it, but not for the olympics
June 5th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
i was in china a few months ago, olympic graphics all over the place in beijing, but when i tried to remember the beijing olympics logo just a moment ago, i couldn’t. it didn’t leave such a strong impact. it certainly didn’t grab people’s attentions like this london one did. (i am much more aware of the herzog & de meuron designed stadium).
as much as many will complain about this logo, it is natural to notice what kind of symbolism is normally attributed to the olympics by the general public: the olympic athletes are role models, characters with austere personas - each country covers pages and pages of its valuable newspaper space with intimate facts about its best athletes. people expect the olympics to have [the idealism of] a spirit of global unity, etc.
to me, this logo looks like graffiti, the vocabulary of the street. and yes, the magenta does have a certain miami vice appeal.
i think it does well to strip the facade of public idealism with an in-your-face attitude that brings the olympics to the level of the every day citizen. people are talking about the logo, people will definitely remember it.
5 years from now, almost every person in the world will know the logo and, perhaps, subconsciously remove the existing social nostalgic constructs with a reality based in the current times.
June 6th, 2007 at 4:26 am
What crap! Disappointment!
-W
June 6th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
At first I did not like the logo but after meditating it I think it is an abstraction of 2012 and I believe it might abstract other things also!!!!
June 6th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
actually yeah, the 2 and the 1 looks more like the jewish museum.
for some reason my attention was drawn to the 0 which kinda looked like the plan and section and elevation of the V&A tho,… i do like alot.
dudes got a good point tho,… i cant remember the other logos, but i’ll probably remember this one for a while.
June 6th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
wow, what the f*** is that? looks like something a preschooler drawn
June 11th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
What ugliness is that? Someone got paid for this?
I should change my line of business if it’s that easy. I still remember France logo was a good one