Quite a few articles have come up recently defending the London Olympic logo, saying such knowledgeable things as “It doesn’t have to be beautiful to be effective.” and “It’s bold, everyone will remember it!” While the logo is effective in the sense that you can’t get it’s ugly shape out of your head, it needs to come with a translator. I can use my imagination and see a 2…0…that’s supposed to be a 0? Dash. Z? It’s like one of those games that you only have 3 pieces and you have to make a square.

Placed next to 50 Olympic logos from 1424 to 2016 its beautiful pink/yellow (orange, blue, insert random color here) zags stand out by burning my pupils. It by no means makes me want to visit London or get excited about the 2012 Olympics (especially if how it’s going to be run, will look like this.)

When I look at the logo I think, “Wow London must really have terrible traffic, bad food, angry people, only Microsoft paint, and be stuck in the 80s.” Instead we need a logo that says, “Wow, London has beautiful architecture, great restaurants, tons of shopping, a great underground transportation system, and so on. Really, anything that people would enjoy.

Granted the alternate London 2012 logos weren’t very inventive and the logo in question is a completely different concept (Is the logo raving about the club scene and the zags are what all the other people will look like after downing a bottle of Absinthe?) Both London’s Organizing Committee and Wolff Olins say they are trying to “inspire young people around the world” and that this logo reaches those young people. I can just imagine how the last meeting went “Mm, yes…kids these days are all on drugs, they’ll love this.”

Postscript: Getting paid £400,000 for a logo? SUH-WEEET!