London Bridge is falling down

Have you seen the new logo for the 2012 London Olympics? No? Well, feast your eyes...


Wow, huh? It's a bit... Andy Warhol. Kind of... bright, and definitely... non-traditional. My first thought was, "ew!" Upon closer examination, my thoughts are still "ew!" but now with good reason: it doesn't say anything about London. I'm certainly not saying that you need an image of Big Ben, but I don't know... it looks a little more Depeche Mode circa 1981 (alright, so they're British) than London 2012.

The even bigger issue here is that the people in London hate it. Despise it. Have a petition out to redesign it. Even more outrageous? The price that was paid to the firm Wolff Olins to design it: £400,000 (about--GULP--$797,120 American dollars. Ummm... note to the Olympic committee: I'm available).

But the funniest part of all of this is the Daily Mail has a contest going to see if regular Joes can design a better logo. Guess what? They can't. Actually, I'm reminded of that hilarious scene in European Vacation, when Chevy Chase can't get out of the traffic loop, so the family is stuck driving in a continuous circle all day: "Look kids, there's Big Ben."

And the Millenium Wheel. Oh, and look, there's the Tube. I realize that these are not graphic designers (The Mail actually brags about the amount of time spent on these logos: not much. Hey Daily Mail: no kidding!), but these designs aren't much better than the original. There are a few (using the term "few" loosely here) that stand out a little more than the rest, but nothing to write home about.

The final nail in the coffin is that there was a commercial produced introducing the logo. The logo moves in the video. The bright pink and yellow logo moves in the video. Calling all epileptics: don't watch this video! That's right, the logo is inducing epileptic seizures.

Seriously, Olympic Committee: Call me.