London Olympics new £400,000 logo unveiled - to widespread derision

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No one could deny that it catches the eye.

But opinions were bitterly divided as the logo for the London 2012 Olympic Games was unveiled.

Some welcomed its striking design and vibrant colour-changing animation, designed to catch the attention on television and computer screens.

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One example of the logo for the London 2012 Olympics

Others said that when it is viewed as a static image, for example on billboards and T-shirts, it simply does not work.

It is hard to see that the shapes are meant to signify 2012, they said, and the whole thing was a waste of the £400,000 it cost to create.

The last time Britain hosted the Games, in 1948, the official poster featured a discus thrower in front of Big Ben.

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The poster for the last London Olympic Games

Critics of the new logo described it as a 'broken swastika', a 'scribbled joke', a 'toileting monkey' and even the logo for the Nazi SS.

Within hours of its announcement, an online petition had been set up condemning it as an 'embarrassment' which represents Britain in the 'worst possible way' and calling for it to be scrapped. It attracted 10,000 signatures.

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Other Olympic logos

p>However the Games organisers stood by their choice.

Olympics chief Lord Coe hailed the design as 'the vision at the heart of our brand' and insisted doubters would be proved wrong.

"We don't do bland,£ he said. £This is not a bland city and we were not going to come out with a bland corporate logo that would just be left to appear on a polo shirt you do your gardening in in a few weeks.£

Former Olympic gold medallist Denise Lewis, an official ambassador for the 2012 Games, said: "The kids loved it but for some I guess it's too bold. I guess it's a generation thing."

The logo, which comes in four different bright shades - pink, orange, magenta and green - will feature on websites, posters, T-shirts, mugs and other merchandise over the next five years.

"People are just going to have to get used to it," said Adrian Bassett, of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG). "We are not going to go away and change it."

LOCOG insisted the logo, commissioned a year ago and drawn up by the design agency Wolff Olins, was funded through private money, which it generates from sponsors, merchandising and future ticket sales.

London 2012 has so far signed Lloyds TSB as its first national partner in a deal worth around £80million.

The logo is said to be a deliberate change from previous Olympic symbols, which often feature an image from the host city.

Tony Blair said: "When people see the new brand, we want them to be inspired to make a positive change in their life."

Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell said: "It takes our values to the world beyond our shores, acting both as an invitation and an inspiration."

MPs said however that there were serious questions to be asked about how hundreds of thousands of pounds had come to be spent on such an instantly unpopular design.

Games organisers were urged to go back to the drawing board or reinstate their old bid logo, showing the Olympic colours in a ribbon shaped like the River Thames through the 2012 date.

Bob Neill, a London Assembly member and the Conservative spokesman on the 2012 Games, said: "Lord Coe has described this logo as 'ambitious, interactive and youth-friendly' - I would describe it as hideous.

"Questions need be answered as to how we have ended up in this situation. Was there an open competition to supply the designs? If so, what on earth do the rejected ones look like?"

Tory MP Philip Davies, a member of the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, said: "Bright pink is certainly not the colour I would have chosen to represent the United Kingdom.

"I suppose it sums up the politically-correct world that this Government appears to inhabit."

 

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