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Ugly, complicated, forgettable:
it’ll be a great success
Magnus Linklater on that logo
Magnus Linklater
Columnist, The Times: Editor of the Scottish
Edition
Filed 08 Jun 07
©Magnus Linklater
The text of this
article was originally published in The Times, June 6, 2007.
It is reproduced here with the kind permission of its
author and of the newspaper.
The illustrated logo was drawn from www.london2012.com
by Kimpton Graphics
The Olympics 2012 logo breaks pretty well
every design rule in the book. It is not simple, it is not memorable,
it is not beautiful. It is bound to be a success.
First impressions are never the whole story. When
Alec Issigonis unveiled his model for one of the best-loved cars
ever produced in Britain – the Morris Minor – his boss,
Lord Nuffield, was furious. “It looks like a poached egg,”
he stormed. But it went on to become the biggest-selling runabout
of its time. And when that was succeeded by the Mini, with its uncomfortable
bucket seats, and its ludicrous snub-nosed bonnet, it outsold every
car in Europe.
So the fact that the Olympic logo is a visual
disaster and an object of immediate mockery should not necessarily
be held against it. Nor should its almost wilful determination to
ignore the basic convention of good design, which is to win the
affection of the public. No one is ever going to love this uncomfortable,
angular piece of geometry. It has invited comparisons to an ill-fitting
jigsaw, a subliminal sex act and a disassembled swastika.
The newly launched brand logo for the
London Olympic Games 2012.
Drawn from www.london2012.com
Worse, it has to be “explained”. A
cumbersome, 43-word paragraph that is almost a parody of modern
jargon, reveals that it is “dynamic, modern and flexible,
reflecting a savvy world where people, especially young people,
no longer relate to static logos, but respond to a dynamic brand
. . .”. The blurb goes on for some time in this vein, but
already the senses have been dulled, the spirits crushed. Any description
that has to repeat the word dynamic in the space of a single sentence
is clearly straining for effect – straining but not delivering.
When one learns in addition that the design team
has had a year to work on it, that the contract came to £400,000,
that it has had to convey “a great deal of information”
and to work “on several levels”, then one’s worst
fears are realised. This is clearly design by committee, an unforgivable
crime in the lexicon of creative style. You can almost hear the
exchanges in the offices of Wolff Olins, the “brand consultancy”
that came up with the final product: “I’m not sure if
it’s quite working yet, Julian . . .” “Let’s
do the same thing, only in blue this time . . .” “Do
you mind if I run that through the computer just one more time?”
I don’t think Leonardo did things that way.
Nor did the sportswear manufacturer, Nike, when it was looking for
a single logo to convey the idea that its equipment was the best
on the market. A lowly intern in the design office called Caroline
Davidson came up with a simple tick, which went on to become one
of the most famous emblems in the commercial world. She was paid
$35.
The symbol of the Shell oil company came from
the firm’s founding father Marcus Samuel, who began his business
importing seashells from the Far East, and used one of the shells
to promote the company. That great designer Milton Glaser, who produced
the endlessly copied I ? New York design, with its heart resting
on top of the letters NY, was striving for simplicity. He got it
in one. For the same reason, the new logo for the Tory party is
a success. A quick squiggle of green crayon, and you’ve got
an image of growth, strength – and even alternative energy.
But there is more to design than that. Some images
work, not because they are functional or obviously beautiful, but
because they have an almost visceral appeal. Philippe Starck’s
famous juicer, on its spidery legs, is neither practical nor simple,
but has a weird brilliance about it that is irresistible. “My
juicer is not meant to squeeze lemons,” he once said. “It
is meant to start conversations.” The famous 1961 E-type Jaguar
had impressionable young men swooning with desire, but was about
the most impractical car on the market. As Donald Norman, author
of Emotional Design, put it: “People take one look and say
‘I want it’, then they might ask: ‘What does it
do?’ And last: ‘How much does it cost?’ ”
The Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird” aircraft is probably
the scariest and possibly the ugliest plane ever invented, but you
can’t take your eyes off it.
Nor should one forget the added ingredient of
humour. When the Mini Cooper S was unveiled by BMW, The New York
Times commented: “It is fair to say that almost no new vehicle
in recent memory has provoked more smiles.” Enric Miralles’s
much-criticised Scottish Parliament building is full of jokes, such
as upturned boats and windows designed to resemble Raeburn’s
skating minister. It is said that he came in one day with a bunch
of flowers, threw them on to a table, and announced: “There’s
the model for your building.” I presume that was meant to
be funny, though with Catalans one can never tell.
All these criteria for good design are comprehensively
ignored by the new Olympic logo. It is neither amusing, nor does
it make one swoon. It is overworked, overhyped and, unfortunately
over here for the next five years. We will have to get used to it.
But it may be that this anarchic approach is its strength. Precisely
because it has torn up the conventional rule-book, it may just get
by. This, after all, is the era of the postmodernist, deconstructive
approach to art, where a shark is not really a shark unless it is
sliced open and suspended in formaldehyde, where an artist becomes
rich and famous by stripping human bodies to the bone and where
an unmade bed, littered with the detritus of a messy life, is accorded
more reverence than a Madonna and saints.
So when we conclude that this logo is devoid of
charm, that it reflects neither the spirit of the Olympics nor its
appeal, that it is a hideous amalgam of half-thought-out ideas that
fail to work either on the aesthetic or the functional level, we
are according it the highest praise. Now let’s just get on
with the Games.
©Magnus Linklater
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