LOCOG go Logo Loco

By sizemore Last edited 219 months ago
LOCOG go Logo Loco
olympics.jpg

The sensible bits are the press release, but the smartarse commentary is 100% Londonist:

The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) has started the process of designing a logo and identity for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. It has appointed AAR, a leading agency search and selection company, to help select a brand and design agency. The chosen agency will help refine the brand positioning for the London 2012 Games and develop a Games emblem and associated corporate identity. The process, modelled on industry best practice, will begin with a comprehensive search of the UK’s leading branding and design agencies to draw up a shortlist. An agency will be chosen by February 2006 after a pitch. The pitch will not involve creative work. The agency will then conduct a brand positioning exercise looking at all design requirements for the build up to the London Games and the Games themselves.

And we thought watching the damn thing was going to be dull - imagine having to sit through all those meetings for the next couple of years simply to come up with an image that works as a free Sun poster and an overpriced cuddly toy.

The agency will then develop the Games emblem with a full set of brand guidelines and consider how the emblem – the identifying symbol of the London Games - would work in a variety of different settings.

Settings such as on the front of crisps packets or anything flammable in Paris.

The logo will be launched later in 2006 or early 2007. The London 2012 logo will be in use more prominently after the Beijing Games in 2008 and will be used extensively in the run-up to and the period of the Games themselves.

They don't want to leave it anywhere near the Beijing logo in case it gets bled on. Or run over by a tank.

Keith Mills, Chief Executive of LOCOG, said: “The logo and brand identity of the London Games is hugely important – it is the emblem that everyone will identify with and be used to promote the Games. It needs to be visually attractive, strong and inspirational. The public must easily identify with it and it must be an effective tool for us to raise sponsorship to help fund the Games.”

"Visually attractive, strong and inspirational" sounds exactly like Brian Blessed. Now there's a mascot!

The logo will have a huge variety of usages – at sporting competition venues, dressing across the city, on merchandising and sponsor programmes, on vehicles and uniforms. It will also feature prominently on the official London 2012 mascot, which will be launched after the Beijing Games. Keith Mills commented: “We are excited about this appointment because London has the best creative agencies in the world and we are looking forward to working with them over the next 7 years”.

7 years? It only took us five minutes to borrow the above image and change the colours around a bit.

More info to be had here.

Last Updated 08 December 2005