Look, not everyone gives a shit about design, but on a whole, it has been proven that in commercial world all successful brands have a solid concept behind it, and a very well calculated graphical approach to match.
Levis, Mcdonald's, CocaCola, Malboro, Starbucks, Apple, everyone have a great story about their logo, and how it influences public response. You ain't in the industry so of course you wouldn't know, you don't know how a simple change in IKEA's coporate font affected their brand value in Millions, you wouldn't know how Steve Job changed the face of Apple starting with its logo.
But it's documentated, it's measurable the importance of brand and design.
Why it makes no difference to you whether to paid for a 3d intro or make your own? Because you are just an amatuar, and your audiences are very limited, your video isn't out to influence millions of people, nor was it created to convey a particularly global message. I doubt the design was particularly good either (come on lets show me :razz
But we are talking about an Olympic logo here, it is something that accounts all cultural and language difference, it is to project a singular image of britain with at little distortion as possible. Graphic design isn't just making something "cool", it is suppose to last, a testiment of a city's vision at a time.
Designers companies can't tell the organizer what they should have, the brief is almost set in stone by the brains behind the whole project themselves, don't think designers can do whatever they want for novel reasons, we don't, we actually work in very confined areas with a very specific message to tell, in reality designers are more fooled around than fooling others.
You have seen some stonkingly good 2012 logos? post them in a workable link they we might discuss.
That's the problem with the execution, in the process there must be focus group studies carried out and the fact this logo passed must mean it was rather well accepted at least in that group.
for a project of this size you can expect the focus group to be around 5,000 people, don't think that's little because in average the cost of doing such study is 2000 euros per head, so that's a huge sum of money to get such response.
There is always a problem with focus group, is that they can't actually tell which specific part is wrong, surely no one had seen the hidden blowjob in it back then.
No one will intent to create a logo that is disliked by the commons, what's the motive so? creating something popular is always more profitable and designers ain't artists, they are in it for real economical returns, for us and for the clients.
The problem might be from the designer himself, maybe he was to adventurous and misjudged the open mindness of the public, or it was actually more a administrative decision, the story has yet to spill but truth is by the time the logo meets the public it is really to late to change.
I won't defend the execution, but in concept, and in the design process, that is no quarkary involved, it doesn't look like this because some dude thought it was cool, there are a lot of reasons and development. There will be always better design solutions, but it probably has not appear yet, or it is lost somewhere in the development.
You definitely are in some form of graphic design or marketing consultancy. Yes I've read and studied all the books myself and a lot of what you're saying is shpeel.
All of those companies are private brands and are different to the Olympics. The Olympics and the 5 rings are the 'brand'. The flame too. The product and design are already set in stone. These other bits and bobs are periphials that you don't want to waste too much money on. Keep them stylish and cool. Anything more and you're wasting money and are basically taking the piss out of the public!
For all your marketing expertise the London 2012 design team has failed miserably. The 2012 logo looks like Lisa Simpson performing a sexual act. That's major fail! We live in a world when the economy is crashing, the last thing you need is rubbish logos and mascots.
Just like the music industry, marketing and design companies are failing at justifying their own existence. There are thousands, maybe millions, of internet users that can provide products of the same, if not better, level that these companies have offered. The game is up and the public have noticed because unlike those companies you mentioned it's their money on the line. The public don't fall for lame gimmicks any more.
excluding apple and starbucks for not having existed back then... how many of these have changed their logos in any meaningful way in the last 40 years or so? (ie after marketing really became an industry)
you do realise that brand value is something businessmen deal with ie people generally devoid of any creative thought?
what this boils down to is if you have a well established brand change is bad... doesnt have anything to do wheter the new brand image was actually good or not
assuming that intrepids and your numbers are correct the focus group could at most have been 200 people
your 5000 person focus group at 2000 euro a piece would have cost 10 millions which is rather a lot more than the 400.000 that intepid quotes as the costs of the whole logo and mascotts
£400,000 was what the London 2012 Olympic people revealed as the logo cost. Who knows what they wasted on the mascots. They haven't released a figure so that says something. Even if they did I would doubt it's validity.
Interestingly that's what some people had purposed as well, just developea system where you can simply change the host's name and theme colours.
I don't know how'd that work, but there's no obvious reason it shouldn't.
I understand you are not happy with how your tax payer's money is spent, well I don't have the right to say anything about that!
Brand value is something marketing directors deal with, in respond to how the brand is doing in real life. Brand ages, brand value can go out of date, out of relevance, the brand might have evolved beyond its original market segment and position, these are all reason for rebranding.
Marketing directors ain't suit and tie business people, they are multidisciplinary combining advertising, marketing, media and communication skills. Only in small private companies where shareholders deal directly with designers (and that as you said, will usually end up shitty)
Sorry I put an extra zero behind, was thinking with HKD in mind.
Olympic games are seen much more as a long term, "open to the world" investment, rather than an immediate source of profit. Any country hoping to host the games and make immediate money out of it will most likely present awful, awful games.
About the mascots, the main problem I have is that I don't know what the hell these things are. The Vancouver 2010 mascots were by all means quite pedobear looking ish (http://www.mbarrick.net/livejo ... quatchi_miga_pedobear.jpg), but they at least had the advantage of looking somewhat like animals (ok, one's a Sasquatch, but still). Those two London things look like nothing at all... except perhaps cyclops penises.
Here's an example of good branding for a city, in this case Melbourne, it has all the vital merit of a good logo because:
a.It is not out of nowhere, it came with the reposition of the city itself.
b.It is unique, and unexpected without any australian cliche elements.
c.It can easily be adopted in a signage system
d.It transends well into moving images.
e.It's cool!
actually of the brands you mentioned the ones that are old enough and mentioned on the site (coca cola and mcdonalds) both as i said havent ever done any changes to their logos
i love how pepsi fell prey to the helevtica pandemic in the 60s
ibm on the other hand hasnt changes since almost 40 years and (this is the important bit) hasnt changed since it became a computer company
also this:
>The globe shape IBM logo failed to accomplish the friendly and caring image of the company as it was faceless, bureaucratic, and cold.
seriously? i mean clearly it had nothing to to with the globe logo being illegible
who incidentally are businessmen with MBAs
looking at that site you posted most of the actually properly recognizable brands havent done any real changes to their logos in a long long time
ie busioness skills not creative ones
also speaking of multidisciplinary skillsets... name one job that doesnt require communication skills
that would still have costed 1 million euro or ~666.666 pound for the focus group alone not the 400.000 pounds the whole logo design did cost
which is what ultimately its desinged for
any good design has mass appeal thats the whole point of design
also about that melbourne logo... it goes wrong on a very fundamental level
with city branding (the whole concept of a city being a brand is rather bizarre to begin with but anyway) the brand is the city and not the other way around so the brand should incorporate something that makes it unmistakeably melbournish and not be some generic upper case m that means nothing to anyone
incidentallly another australian city made a great job of creating an olympic games logo that both incorporates the bits that communicate it being an olympic logo to the viewer (flame rings etc) and the most iconic bit of sydneys architecture http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi ... 5/57/Sydney_2000_Logo.svg
As I mentioned above the reasons of rebranding, if the brand is relevant, recognizable and has a timeless quality, it doesn't need to be rebranded, since rebranding is expensive business.
Coca Cola indeed has changed their logo, the menuscript they used gone under and overhaul and it has become a icon, you can tell it's coca cola just by the C alone, there was a lot of thought went behind it.
Helvetica is just a font that does a lot of things well, and it still is, if a font is good, use it, that's my opinion. Either you fell prey to the Helvetica pandemic or you fell prey to the "I will use whatever isn't Helvetica" pandemic, Helvetica is like air, it's omnipresent!
IBM logo was another timeless, I remember in its brand book there's a page where you are only shown a corner of the I, but it was instantly regonizable.
I am not going to pretend I know more than you by asking whether you have worked with one...but if you have been to design forums where Marketing directors share their visions, you shall notice while they are no art directors and cannot communicate their brand in very visual terms, they have a very solid grasp on what makes a brand tick, the X-factor, the emotional aspect which can't be put into numbers.
Answered at the top.
Marketing directors understands they can't engage the public with hard figures and facts, they know the difference in making the public "understand" and "moved". So a good marketing director will have a very clear picture of what the brand is, in very simple words, and trust the art directors to translate it into visuals. For example for diesel, it is constructive rebellion, which seems like a dry and weird combination of words, but it provides an unique angle for art directors to work with.
Then probably the focus group is smaller than what I suggested, I don't have any sources but it was just a guesstimate from similiar projects.
I ain't saying it is successful was I? I was just saying it isn't the problem with the process, nor concept, it's a matter of execution.
It's not about the M, it's about the three dimensional weave that goes with the high tech and dynamic city image that Melbourne is now cultivating, the M is merely something to tie everything around, and before you say it is generic, try finding a font with a M which looks 80% similiar.
They are not doing the brand to restate what everyone knows about melbourne, the landscape and architecture are all very well known and does not need restating, it's an entirely different brief - to inspire a new look about melbourne that we don't usually think about, and that's in compliment to the next decade of development.
The city is a brand, but how can you put an entire city on a paper, and makes its core value stand out in 5cm X 5cm of space? You need an identity, and that's exactly why you need a logo. it does not replace the city, it's just a graphical gateway to look at it. [/quote]
It does tick all the boxes for ingredients, native culture, more architecture, and vibrance, it's a good job. it's a good job because Sydney decide that native culture is an important piece of history of australia and that's where they draw the differentiation. The execution is just a natural progression of it, so everything evolves around a core idea, an angle to view itself.
And You can never get such angles without knowing the company/country/culture deeply, which means you can't make a great identity just concerning about looking cool. And that's exactly where the Logo Luke posted is wrong, it saids nothing about Britain.
JJ72 when will you realise the public is far more sophisticated nowadays and doesn't fall for this marketing nonsense. The public isn't a boardroom who have a specific agenda for a marketing programme. Keep it simple and cheap is all the criteria the public want. I am pretty sure the public don't want Lisa Simpson giving a BJ and two phallic mascots representing Britain and London!
When you are spending public money, TAX PAYERS money, you can't go down this route of talk about the logo have to do x, y and z.
And when they sit at home and watch a TV and website that shows mascots and logos that look better and make more sense AND didn't cost anything at all it just adds to the 'outrage'.
judging by that site you linked to basically all they did was make it more oblique
as for the logo itself its rather basic and from a time well before marketing was even a word
coca cola id say is clearly a case of substance over style
and thats part of the problem
add to that that judging by the documentary (yes ive actually watched most of it) its fans are all rather dull and uncreative and youve got yourself a problem
now ill give you that pepsi desperately needed another logo however its not because the earlier ones were any worse as such its that they looked like a coca cola knockoff
its another great example of less is more and that you want clarity rather than some convoluted design that needs 5 hours to explain the thinking behind it
that said the 30 year old low line count crt look of the logo is rather dated nowerdays
maybe im just weird or boring or have no heart or whatever but ive never felt any emotion associated with any brand
you say its a brilliant description of a brand image i say its meaningless marketing babble
im guessing there was no focus group
either that or they showed it to them noticed that all they got was blank stared of incomprehension went on to explain the thinking behind it and the focus group memebers all decided that its rather clever actually
its like the guy who tells jokes that need an explaination... its not that the listener isnt clever enough its simply that the joke either isnt very good or wasnt told properly to begin with
actually yes the concept is the problem because as far as i and pretty much anyone else in this thread and presumably everyhwere else in the world sees when they fisr look at the london logo is a meaningless arrangement of tangram pieces
and then after a moment everyone sees lisa simpson giving the pyramid headed guy from silent hill a blowjob
see? its needs explaination
im sure somwhere in the millions of fonts out there theres gotta be one that looks like that
what makes it generic isnt the shape of the m its that what it has to say is that theres something starting with m that wants to look technologically advanced and thats all it has to say really
it could signify just about any modern city or company that starts with an m... melbourne munich matrox etc... theres nothing absolutely nothing about it that says melbourne to the onlooker
first and foremost it is a good job because you look at it and even without the writing its instantly recogniseable as and olympic logo for sydney
agreed but what does the lisa simpson blowjob say about london without having a 3 page essay on the thinking behind it stapled to the logo?
Marketing isn't nonsense, it is designed exactly to try and understand what the public wants. So in this case it failed, then suddenly the whole system has to be penalized? And all that branding has profited britain is deemed worthless? Do You know how many oversea students go to britain to study each year because London is consider one of the design capitals in the world? The living expense of 60 foreign students doing a full degree course in London will have covered the entire cost of the logo.
Modern consumers does not buy fancy lies, they know what is authentic or not, if the real face of London is indeed "skip the fancy bit, we just want it cheap" than it is really pathetic, it's like going back a century and ruining the whole image that London as an innovating and daring city. However I don't think you can represent the voice of the people, I've read magazines and forums which have all sorts of opinion on the logo, and there are supporters.
I consider it a sad thing when the public see things this way, Britian has one of the most creative environments in the world, it is where designers are well respected and there are a lot of strong brands - Habitat, John Lewis, Vivian Westwood to name a few, and because of one below par project the people is seeming going against the whole design industry.
But I guess I shouldn't take your opinion too seriously because you seem to hate everything british.
Hence I don't think this discussion is worth continuing, some people just made up their mind not to be affected by brands, hey I was like that 5 years ago.
JJ72 stop trying to justify your own job! It's this kind of protectionist argument that the music industry used that saw the DEB fly through parliament.
I don't come out with absolute bollox about me hating everything British!
There is a world of difference between a private company using their private money to invest in some marketing agency. That's their prerogative, I have nothing against that!
BUT when it comes to public projects like this allocation (or mis-allocation) of funds has a far greater importance and relevance because it's TAX money that's paying for it. You know out of the public's pockets...
And as public bodies are completely inept and inefficient I am sure they fall for all the rubbish spouted by marketing agencies wanting a BIG pay day you just don't get with private projects.
The London 2012 team have mucked up. hey could have done something truly innovative and cost-efficient via my idea through mass involvement of the public. Instead they fell for the nonsense a marketing team come out with and probably paid with a blank cheque.
