Last month, the logo for the 2016 Rio Olympics was revealed to the world. The curvy logo represents three embracing, flowing figures one each in ocean blue, sandy gold and rainforest green. Beneath it Rio2016 is written in a simple, script typeface. It's lively, energetic and all-encompassing. It's not overly clever and could have been designed in any decade; it's timeless.
Which sort of rubs salt into the wounds of the controversial, bold, but ultimately flawed London 2012 logo. Everything about the London Olympics seems to spark debate, from the budget of the opening ceremony to the confusing ticket allocation process. But nothing seems to have caused as much outrage as the logo.
When it was revealed by it's creators, brand consultants Wolff Olins, on 4th June 2007, it was met with a barrage of criticism from the public and the design critics. 80% of people polled by the BBC gave the logo the lowest possible rating. Most of the controversy came from the fact that the logo allegedly "cost £400,000", and led to it quickly becoming the butt of many a joke. "The Sun" even printed a design by a monkey that it's readers proclaimed was preferable.
Many in the design world decided to give the logo the benefit of the doubt, perhaps because it's defendants, including Lord Coe, advised us that this logo was aimed at a youth audience, and hoped to inspire interest in The Games from a younger audience. We hoped Coe and Wolff Olins had greater foresight than the detractors and that this logo was simply ahead of it's time. We hoped that half a decade down the line, magenta angular shapes would be de rigour.
Now we're firmly into that future, and the eyes of the world turn to London for the final countdown. The logo was conceived in the mid-noughties, and now looks even more odd. Aiming the logo at a youth market meant drawing on youth culture; which at the time was all about 80s-revival and NuRave, and this was clearly an influence. 5 years is a long time in the light-speed worlds of fashion and youth culture, and the logo now looks as cutting edge as the Killers or the TingTings or the first iPhone. It's like London is hosting a party, wearing a glow-in-the-dark Klaxons t-shirt. That could be the fault of the designers being to easily-led by youth culture that is changes it's shape faster than ever, or worse still, the logo was "designed by committee".
Identities for public bodies in the UK are all too often created by large numbers of people with opposing agendas and different ideas, instead of trusting in the leadership of a single creative vision. Most of the time this way of working produces the blandest of results, but combine this with "outside the box thinking" and you can have a spectacular design disaster.
London 2012 felt the pressure to do something radical, something edgy with it's identity, and did, and credit is due for the bravery of whoever made that call. Sadly the influences they called upon were already out of date.
But the look of the logo is only really half the problem. A good piece of design has a balance of form and function, weighted towards one side or the other, but always with both working together. The Olympics logo could still be something to be proud of, if it's functionality redeemed it's controversial styling. Sadly, it fails on that front too. Zach Braff, star of Scrubs, said in a TV interview in January 2012 that he'd seen the 2012 logo "all of the the place" in London, but hadn't realised it was for the Olympics, which sums the problem up perfectly, and it seems he's not alone with many tourists struggling to identify the message behind the pointy shapes. In simple terms, you don't have to be able to work out what a logo is meant to be, but if you don't know what it's for it simply doesn't work.
By the time 2016 comes around, the Rio logo won't raise as many eyebrows as the London one but hopefully by then, the world will be remembering London 2012 for the success of our city and our team, not the disappointing effort of our logo.