The 2012 Logo

 

It is now 3 years since the logo for London 2012 was presented. In times of general logo tiredness and brand overload, it was one heftily discussed piece of graphic design. Less than two days after the logo was presented by British agency Wolff Olins, over 26,000 people had signed an online petition for it to be scrapped. Comments included: “cheap & tacky”, “complete and utter rubbish”, “awful, amateurish, jagged, like a badly done jigsaw”, "dreadful and embarassing", "load of old twaddle", "a shame", "looks like a broken swastika”, “looks like a toileting monkey", “horrendous, spiky and aggressive”, ”a comical sex act between The Simpsons” - more for instance here. 

Patrick Burgoyne, of the Creative Review, said those he had spoken to about the logo were “quite shocked and quite outraged”. Stephen Bayley, of the Design Museum, said it is a "puerile mess, an artistic flop and a commercial scandal". The Independent wrote that the logo “claimed a medal for being the most unpopular logo in British marketing history”. 

The logo animation on the official website of the 2012 Olympics triggered epileptic seizures and had to be removed from the site. According to the charity Epilepsy Action, it was a danger to anyone with photosensitive epilepsy.

The reasons why the public was so outraged are interesting to investigate. Aesthetic questions are always relative. Interesting for innovation is that there is a loosely defined space of expectations - what is understood to be suitable and adequate. This understanding is both culture- and time-specific. In the case of the 2012 logo, its intense colors and serrated shapes obviously defied what was understood as suitable for the Olympics. Things have cooled down since, so it can be assumed that what seemed spectacularly outrageous three years ago is seen less so today.