In case you’ve somehow missed the furore - the new Olympics 2012 logo has been revealed. It was devised with help from Wolff Olins (a company some of us have worked with in the past), and they are in the midst of a huge wave of controversy.

We are split as to how we feel about the logo. Some of us dislike it, seeing it as clumsy and patronising in its attempt at appealing to the ‘MySpace’ generation. There was an extreme example of cognitive dissonance in the sight of Seb Coe announcing the logo in a suit and tie. It is like a logo for a nu rave band, the scene of the moment, and it may well feel dated within 6 months.

That said, it is rare for such a high profile logo to be so bold and look so (no other word for it) bonkers - so much so, it would be great if we all ended up loving it. The thinking behind it is solid, and it would have been dull for the logo to have been a polite tasteful design that as Coe put it, would have comfortably sat on corporate polo shirts. A logo is not the brand, so it will be interesting to see how it develops over the years.

Update: Worthwhile further discussion about the logo can be found at Speak Up.

By Andrew Fox on Tuesday, 5th June, 2007 at 11:27 am