Wednesday, June 6, 2007

From The Dept. of Are You Shitting Me?:
The 2012 London Olympics Logo

On Monday I read about it but didn't see it, so I didn't think too much about it and it slipped my mind.

Then today I saw the thing.

Ho.

Ly.

Shit.


Perhaps on peyote or shrooms it looks really great

My first reaction was that a functionally retarded 1st grader on acid could come up with something better in 15 minutes. But, in addition to being politically incorrect as well as tremendously insensitive, that may very well be a bit too harsh on functionally retarded 1st graders on acid: they could most likely do a whole hell of a lot better than this.

John John's first reaction was that it looked like a woman with big hair blowing a guy.

This thing will make Atlanta's 1996 Whatizit mascot fiasco look like a Rodin sculpture in comparison.

London 2012 organizers passed on the regular grade bullshit and came instead with the industrial grade, heavy duty bullshit:

"the powerful, modern emblem symbolises the dynamic Olympic spirit and its inspirational ability to reach out to people all over the world"

London 2012 Chairman Sebastian Coe:

"This is the vision at the very heart of our brand," he added. "It will define the venues we build and the Games we hold and act as a reminder of our promise to use the Olympic spirit to inspire everyone and reach out to young people around the world."

IOC President Jacque Rogge:

"This is a truly innovative brand logo that graphically captures the essence of the London 2012 Olympic Games, namely to inspire young people around the world through sport and the Olympic values."

Ummmm, yeah, dudes, whatever. Puff, puff, pass.

I think most of us would more likely agree with Bob Blackman, the C0nservative Party's London Olympics spokesman, who dropped some sweet, sweet Britsmack:

"Lord Coe has described this logo as 'ambitious, interactive and youth-friendly' -- I would describe it as hideous," he said. "Questions needed 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? We need to know how much money this exercise has cost, because whatever it was, it's been a complete waste of money."

I'm with you, dude. And that is the first time I have endorsed the position of a conservative politician in a long, long time.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It really is truly horrendous. I have a pretty high opinion of Seb Coe as these things go, but good lord that is ugly. Apparently there's been a competition on the BBC web site to design a better alternative.

And thanks for the mental image of what it looks like, because I'll never get rid of that. Feck.

Kanu said...

Pretty much exactly how I feel about John John pointing it out to me. It's like the hidden arrow in the FedEx logo between the E and the X: you never notice it, then someone points it out to you, and then forever more you cannot help but notice.

Anonymous said...

Dude, the image thing is killing me. The kicker that I heard on the radio today that they had to pull some flash movie of the logo on their website because people were complaining about seizures.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21861385-663,00.html

beast in 'bama said...

"If so, what on Earth do the rejected ones look like?" Conservative or not, Blackmon is right. Nothing quite like "Britsmack." I like the term. Quite.

What is it about the Olympics that makes normally sane people lose touch with all notions of clean, modern design? Must be a competition for the gold in hideousness, and the Brits have taken a solid lead with this effort.