K-9 looking at 2 ducks
at 4:13pm on Tuesday, 5th June 2007
Is how Metro decribed London's spanking new logo launched with much fanfare on Monday. LOCOG have taken a lot of flak over the £400,000 Wolf Olins design, and seem genuinely surprised by just how much people dont like it. So far over 25,000 people have signed up to a petition on the BBC sport website demanding that it's changed. Based on a straw poll of people in Demos, we quite like the logo, but then we've been accused before of having a touch of the Nathan Barleys about us.
The smartest comment I've heard anyone make about the whole thing is Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum who said, "It has a touch of graffiti in it, and that probably has a lot to do with the sense that the big sponsors see London, the city, as a cooler thing to be associated with than people running around an athletics track."
This raises the question which a growing number of people are asking- does London really need the Games? Usually with the Olympics its outlier cities using the Olympics to make their mark on the world stage- like Barcelona did with great gusto. In this case it sounds like the Olympics using London to prop itself up.
That might be a bit harsh, but making sure the Games have legitimacy and value means getting them out of the stadium and just London, and making the Games something that people can do something with on their own terms- whether it be people running their own DIY version in their local park or using it to campaign for better sports provision in their town.
So its interesting to see the strapline LOCOG have gone for- "Everyone's Games". Nice democratic, participative sounding stuff.
But what do they mean? To actually use the lovely new logo you'll have to cough up £50million and become one of Games offical sponsors. And the branding regime controlling "everybody's Games" rules is tight to say the least- don't bother trying anything sneeky.
The word is that LOCOG are developing another "non-commercial" sub-brand that might have a more relaxed regime about who gets to use it. So don't get distracted by Wolf Olin's pretty colours. It will be in the small print of the rules around this other sub-brand that will really determine whether we get a Games that everyone has a chance of getting something useful out of or not.
The smartest comment I've heard anyone make about the whole thing is Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum who said, "It has a touch of graffiti in it, and that probably has a lot to do with the sense that the big sponsors see London, the city, as a cooler thing to be associated with than people running around an athletics track."
This raises the question which a growing number of people are asking- does London really need the Games? Usually with the Olympics its outlier cities using the Olympics to make their mark on the world stage- like Barcelona did with great gusto. In this case it sounds like the Olympics using London to prop itself up.
That might be a bit harsh, but making sure the Games have legitimacy and value means getting them out of the stadium and just London, and making the Games something that people can do something with on their own terms- whether it be people running their own DIY version in their local park or using it to campaign for better sports provision in their town.
So its interesting to see the strapline LOCOG have gone for- "Everyone's Games". Nice democratic, participative sounding stuff.
But what do they mean? To actually use the lovely new logo you'll have to cough up £50million and become one of Games offical sponsors. And the branding regime controlling "everybody's Games" rules is tight to say the least- don't bother trying anything sneeky.
The word is that LOCOG are developing another "non-commercial" sub-brand that might have a more relaxed regime about who gets to use it. So don't get distracted by Wolf Olin's pretty colours. It will be in the small print of the rules around this other sub-brand that will really determine whether we get a Games that everyone has a chance of getting something useful out of or not.
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