'Is the Olympic Branding condemnation really justified and what does it all boil down to?' asks Daniel Birch, Creative Director at Midlands digital agency Freestyle Interactive.
What a week it was in the business of design.
Heralded as "dynamic, vibrant, contemporary, flexible & inspiring" at its launch last week, the new 2012 Olympic logo has come in for a bit of a bruising.
The slugging from Joe Public, who are puzzled by what the logo is actually supposed to mean and why it has to cost so much, seems to have caught the Olympic branding bigwigs off guard.
At the same time, the largely negative reactions from the wider design industry means the creative community is now gnawing its own right hand off as it wrestles with yet more negativity about the business of logo and branding creation. Add to that the missed epilepsy factor and it's all turned into a bit of a PR and communications disaster with resounding echoes of the great BA airline tailfin re-design debacle.
Historically though, what the PR and Corporate Comms people dealing with the problematic BA re-design did not have to tackle was the voracity of online petitioners. Calls to scrap the offending logo are rife and the myriad, lewd re-workings of the logo are finding a loud, global voice as they ping across the world's viral networks and communities.
It's all adding to the pressure surrounding the Olympics and we're still five years away. One thing is for sure - anyone in the business of corporate reputation management who is still unconvinced about the power of online PR or social media and its real capacity to whip up a hurricane over a 'reputation' issue like this, must be drawing breath.
As the Creative Director of a leading digital agency, what do I think? I have three main points to make, but first it's worth re-iterating what the logo sets out to do.
In the words of the Games' CEO, Paul Deighton, the new emblem has to represent 'a savvy world where people no longer relate to static logos but to a brand that works across traditional and new media networks'.
It's understood that the essential core of the brief was to create an emblem that symbolised "access, participation, stimulation and inspiration". Further it had to be "flexible and to be read by people of all ages across the globe."
My first point is that designing the Olympic logo was always going to be a tricky undertaking. After all, outside of the Olympic committee chiefs, politicians and other stakeholders, millions of us ordinary folk were likely to have opinions about it. We cannot control their thoughts or opinions and neither should we be able to.
Secondly, the 'new media' element, and ultimately how well the finished branding would translate across both the traditional and digital media networks, was always going to be one of the chief challenges.
Is the Olympic Branding condemnation really justified?
With 10 years digital marketing experience in London agencies and now in the Midlands, I've worked on my fair share of re-brands and worked with rolling them out across the emerging digital channels.
One of the big challenges in designing new logos and branding is the various levels of flexibility the identity must achieve to work across multiple digital platforms. Maintaining the integrity of a logo is tricky in digital formats. Moreover, by the time the Olympics arrives in London in five years time, consumer technologies will have moved on substantially. I have no doubt that what the Wolff Olins designers will have seriously considered "future proofed" against the advance of new technologies, will be challenged. You can argue their design approach to the logo is inspired, that there is no preciousness about the mark. But I'm not convinced.
A further thought is that the challenge of creating this 'flexible' ident has resulted in the casting aside of the basics - a logo is crafted and honed to work and importantly look 'right' in all situations. Obviously defining an aesthetic style is a subjective matter but the immediate response is always based upon the 'look'.
Wolf Ollins had the same challenge with the Abbey re-branding that I had the chance to work with a few years a go. A great concept but with a questionable execution, based upon public opinion.
The problem with branding for something like the Olympics is that people are going to measure you on what it looks like - especially as this is all they have to go on.
Thirdly - it's my educated guess that this logo is the result of decision by committee - hence the reason it looks like it does.
When the process of design and creativity is overseen by committee, or committees in this case, it very often turns into a bit of a farce. I am sure that I, along with many other creatives, have experienced the dilution of a creative idea at the hands of multiple stakeholders. What starts as a vision somehow gets marred by the practicalities of developing the visual identity.
So what of the beleaguered Wolff Olins? They've not said much; there's certainly no press comment on their website, just a simple link to a microsite about the new 2012 branding. One thing is for sure Wolff Olins is one of the industry's most respected creative branding agencies; they will have researched, developed and tested their concepts.
So where do I sit on the Olympian logo debate - do I love it or hate it? I love the goal that it is trying to achieve and wonder whether you can really judge a brand on just its vision and glossy new identity.
Ultimately a mark cannot build a brand - it can only represent what it stands for. So time will tell.
Send us your opinion on this by email to: ideas@fsnm.co.uk.