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2012 Olympic logo debacle

Monday, 4 June 2007 branding funny

Today saw the official launch of the 2012 Olympic branding. It’s astounding in many ways and people are making themselves heard so that something can be done to fix it.

The 2012 Olympic was unveiled today and to say that people are going nuts over it would be understatement of the millennia. In true internet style 99.9% of the feedback has been extremely negative. Before I go any further, take a look at the offering (sunglasses are advised):

2012 Olympic logo

I’m not a branding expert but I know what I like and I know what I hate… This certainly falls in the latter category. What does it mean? I really don’t get it… I’ve a feeling that somebody was trying to be clever but decided instead to go get stoned, miss the deadline and hire a three-year-old to mock it up as fast as possible.

They’ve even made a film about the branding on the official 2012 Olympic site. Again, all I can suggest is that people responsible for national branding should take fewer drugs… Or more drugs… Whatever stops things like this going public.

I’m not the only one that thinks this is tripe. The BBC Sport website has been fielding comments on its 606 website since they announced the new logo was released. At the time of writing there have been 2177. Roughly 100 in the time it took me to have a cigarette just now. As the Sport Blog points out, this is breaking all online, comment-related records for the BBC and it’s making the 606 site crawl.

Something that has spawned from this is the Change The London 2012 Logo online petition. I know online petitions are worth less than air when it comes to getting things done, the sheer volume of votes coming through this thing should be sending a very strong message to the people with the reigns that something needs to happen. Again, at the time of writing, there have been 8023 signatures added to the petition — in half a day. Madness.

The BBC is taking entries from people for alternative logos and if we’re honest, some of them are fabulous… Here’s a little selection from James Wren and Matt Le Gresley, respectively:

Alternative Olympic logo
Alternative Olympic logo