London 2012 Olympics Logo
Session 4 task
Session 4 task
This logo was designed by Graphic Designer Wolff Olins back in 2007. It was launched to the public in London on 4 June 2007 by Sebastian Coe and a team of London 2012 ambassadors.
It has been largely criticised and generated a lot of disturbances around the world. Not only did 80% of the public vote for the worse end of the poll calling it the worst logo ever, but the country of Iran threatened to boycott the games due to it spelling the word 'Zion', which is a biblical term, often refers to the city Jerusalem.
The logo itself, is based on '2012' and incorporates the world-wide recognised olympic rings. It includes the word London as well to state the location. London is actually the first City to host the games alone. The font itself was created for the event and is named after it as well.
The symbols used for the Olympics and Paralympics are based on the same core shape. This was to help represent the commitment of london fully integrating the two events.
The Emblem serves as a window to present relevant content such as photography, illustration or art. This has enabled commercial sponsors to demonstrate a real partnership by changing the colour or the inside of the Emblem to fit with their corporate colours or specific campaign.
The four original colours of the London 2012 identity – pink, blue, green and orange – were inspired by the worlds of media, communications and fashion. The colours were carefully chosen to communicate the spirit of the London 2012 Games: energetic, spirited, bright and youthful.
From the comment above, I really agree with these strengths that the symbol has. The communication of the colour choice is clever, also unlike a lot of Logos, this has massive opportunity for change of colour to fit in with another brand which brings in more advertisement for the event and charities. Below are a group of examples.
Here, Adidas have simply made it black and white to fit with their logo, which i think works very well. 
Personally, my favourite of the brand personalised editions of the logo is the BP version. The chosen colours relate to the BP logo/theme and they stand out well. As we all know the colours of BP, the olympic logo could stand on its own and potentially still be read as BP.
Other criticisms
"The London 2012 logo has been presented with promising descriptive text but besides the date, I don't think the logo itself attempts to reference anything of significance," he says. "It has certainly aroused a lot of critical references, from grade school paper cuts to porno" - Lance Wyman
I feel that the comment above has strong views, which unfortunately make perfect sense against the logo. I also feel that the 'paper cuts' could be seen as a good way to get the youth to feel involved. Children may see the logo as a young playful symbol to admire. This reason does make the event feel youthful, which cant be a bad thing in any case.
Being a Graphic Design student, there are many aspects of the logo that I could criticise from how I have been taught however, I think as the logo stands for something aimed at probably the biggest audience in world, it would be difficult for the designer (Olins) to suit everyone. The positive outcomes that I have spoken of are very well thought of work very well for the event. This is my view and the way I would like to see it since reading the many articles and comments on the subject.
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