Coe's team must weather the logo storm

Last Updated: 12:15am BST 06/06/2007

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Video: London releases its logo for the 2012 Olympic Games

As Seb Coe and the London 2012 team watched the number of signatures on the 'change the London logo' petition creep over the 26,000 mark yesterday, they might have taken some solace from an informal document which has been doing the rounds at Canary Wharf in recent weeks.

Coe's team must weather the logo storm
Logo row: the London Olympics' graffiti-style design

First produced by organisers working on the Sydney 2000 Games, it describes the classic six-year cycle of an Olympic host city and reads: Year one: euphoria; Year two: disenchantment; Year three: search for the guilty; Year four: persecution of the innocent; Year five: successful delivery and completion of event; Year six: glorification of the uninvolved.

While the document is undoubtedly intended to be tongue in cheek, it nevertheless contains a large element of truth. This week's furore escalated last night when London removed a short piece of animation featuring the brand from their website after warnings from scientists it could cause epileptic seizures. This is all part of that cycle.

Whatever logo Coe had unveiled at the Roundhouse Theatre in Camden on Monday would have sparked intense public debate.

By choosing such a radical look for the identity of the London Games, the organisers have been guilty of deliberately provoking people to create effect. Few potential sponsors can have failed to notice the attention Lloyds TSB, London's first corporate partner, got from their adverts exploiting the logo in national newspapers yesterday.
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But whether it is logos or mascots, most host cities have been through the sort of storm London is now weathering.

The most similar row actually revolved around Barcelona's choice of mascot for the 1992 Games, a cubist sheepdog called Cobi. When the Picasso-inspired character, designed by Catalonian artist Javier Mariscal, was unveiled by Barcelona in 1987, the dog sparked howls of protest and ignited a major row between the organising committee and the Catalan government.

Juan Antonio Samaranch, the former International Olympic Committee president, was said to have been so embarrassed by the creation that leading IOC officials are believed to have pleaded with the Spanish hosts to scrap it. Mariscal became so fed up with the controversy that he went on an African tour to evade the row.

And yet within months the modernist dog had become a huge hit with children. By the time the Games opened Cobi had become a cultural icon for the city, not to mention one of Barcelona's most lucrative sources of income. He even got his own cartoon show on TV.

Sydney's logo for the 2000 Games combined a millennium running man with a boomerang and the distinctive outline of the city's Opera House. But while many people thought the Australians had played safe, it was soon being criticised for resembling a headless chicken.

At one stage it was appropriated by animal rights activists to boost the cause of battery hens. They adapted the logo, replacing the Olympic rings with eggs and replacing the slogan "Sydney 2000" with "Free Battery Hens 2000". Eventually the row died down and the brand was considered a commercial success.

More recently, Vancouver's logo for the 2010 Winter Games, Ilanaaq, was criticised for looking like Fred Flintstone while Beijing 2008 had even bigger problems, having to postpone their launch because of the outbreak of SARS.

When they eventually picked the date to reveal their Beijing 'dancing man' to the world, the logo leaked after they registered an international version of it in America.

London's brand identity is certainly a departure from anything any other host city has attempted previously.

But Michael Payne, the IOC's former commercial director, said that during 20 years working within the Olympic movement, he had learnt not to judge host city logos and brands on the day of the launch.

"London have certainly been very innovative and in terms of fulfilling their original promise to engage youth and to embrace the whole world, they have been true to their brief," said Payne. "During two decades working at the IOC I learnt not to jump to conclusions on day one of a launch. London's brand will develop over time and if for some reason it still doesn't resonate, there are a whole series of other graphic elements which can be used."

The IOC are unlikely to be too worried about the row here over the London logo. While they might be alarmed at the way the Olympic rings have been relegated to a minor role in London's graffiti-style badge, it is essentially a domestic issue.

They will understand that this is just one of the hurdles on the road to 2012.
[link to www.telegraph.co.uk]