Enough said?
The new logo for the 2012 Olympics has been released and what a logo. I must admit, I’m no design expert, even after completing a relatively creative degree, but I do know a good designer when I see one.
The symbol cost more almost $AUD 1 million and took almost a year to design by Wolff Olins.
Wolf Olins may be a little too ahead of their time, or maybe even behind the times? That’s how confusing ths logo is.
And others shared my thoughts…
“puerile mess, an artistic flop and a commercial scandal” -
Stephen Bayley, art critic for the London Design Museum.
Personally I think while it wouldn’t be hard to sell the idea of the Olympics, England’s Olympic Minister better hire a good brand manager.
While writing this all I could think of was Channel 9’s decision to axe its balls, in more than one way. In short, with the network under new management, the boys upstairs decided to give the company logo an overhaul, along with hundreds of voluntary redundancies. However the designer in charge of the rebranding decided just to rework the old one, literally cutting it in half and getting rid of its famous nine dots which stood neatly next to the 9.
The result? A fairly shmick looking logo, a hefty design bill and a whole lot of signage to be changed, including the News chopper.
More than 12 months later, the balls are back. I was and always will be a big admirer of the late Kerry Packer, and I believe he’s the only man who can reshape the way we watch tv, again, and again, and again.
I’m all up for experimental design, slap around a few vector shapes with awesome type face (after much careful consideration of course) and you’d have one of the best designers in the business.
This particular design reminds me if Tron met Picasso, of course they were generations apart but it just goes to show the Sin curve of style… whatever was once old, is new again. A few years ago I took MATH1004 – Discrete Mathematics, while I never really enjoyed the numbers I did particularly enjoy this subject. During your time at uni you rarely ever remember your lecturers, but the one who took this subject will always stand out.
He could apply maths to anything in life, you name it, from people ordering coffee, the movement of students throughout campus and even the ‘disco dances’ we youngesters often went to when we weren’t in class.
As I was leaving class one day I took the front exit (as opposed to the back one after arriving late so many times) and just as I was about to pass through the doors I put on my sunglasses. I distinctly remember they were two tone lenses, half brown, half clear and probably cost me more than the course I was taking. The Professor flagged me down and told me how he admired my shades and said they reminded him of glasses which he used to wear back in his ‘college days’.
This coming from a bloke who wore a tweed jacket with leather patches, I couldn’t help but feel scared I too would end up in a similar outfit one day.
He explained to me that you could graph fashion trends on a Sin curve.
Be warned, this could be boring but oddly intriguing.
Starting from his generation, the (x) intercept, we would have big glasses, relatively tight jeans and unkept facial hair. Fast foward one generation at the Peak (1,90) and things would be completely different. 80’s fever, the pastels and browns have now turned into neon pinks and greens and parachute pants are the bomb. Then we return to the late 90’s (It was actually 2001, but whose counting), if you haven’t been following so far, we’re now back at the (x) intercept at (0,180) and while we haven’t copied everything from the 70’s, low and behold we’re wearing slightly tight pants, oversized glasses and butterflies are cool again.
Now that’s hot.
At first I thought he just had too much time on his hands, but the idea stuck for a few years on and I realised it applied to other parts of life, music, art, sport and even politics.
