Out of curiosity, I recently did a Google image search for the infamous 2012 London Olympics logo. I had heard about it from my wife, who described it as “Lisa Simpson giving head.” Evidently this design has sparked a lot of criticism. Here is the quote from the design firm, Wolff Olins, who after several years and nearly $100K unveiled the logo.
Wolff Olins creative director Patrick Cox claimed that “Its design is intentionally raw, it doesn’t… ask to be liked very much. It was meant to provoke a response, like the little thorn in the chair that gets you to breathe in, sit up and take notice.”
There are plenty of things that get our attention as we stumble through life. I notice dog feces on the sidewalk, especially if it smells strongly. This evokes a response and emotions. I step around with disgust, and anger at the owners who allowed it to be in a shared public space. I’m not sure, but I don’t think that similar responses were desired by the Olympic Planning Committee who will emblazon this logo on everything from uniforms, to souvenir programs and clothing.
You may think me a bit harsh, but there is an old stereotype we have all seen of the Nouveau Rich, yet uneducated rube, (typically portrayed on screen as a Texas oil millionaire,) who upon looking at some modernistic painting comments “I may not know art, but I know what I like.” This person is then looked at scornfully by people who, we are told, are much more sophisticated and educated. The joke is that we should then dismiss this moneyed but crude person, and the lesson; that money doesn’t buy taste. Having seen many a mega yacht with a hideous interior, (and often exterior,) design, I could easily be led to identify with this stereotype. After reading the blogs critiquing and defending the Lisa Simpson/ Olympic Logo, I think deconstruction of this scenario is called for.
In 2012, the world will tune in to the London Olympics, and if this logo survived we will see it in every screenshot of Olympians either soaring to new heights, or crushed by performances falling short of the podium. The stories behind these athletes embody all that is good and altruistic, (or sometimes the opposite,) in human achievement. As members of the human race, we will all identify with something or someone in those arenas. Don’t we all then collectively have the right to demand a high standard for the imagery associated with these events?
Images evoke emotions, associations leading to memories, and prompt us to take action. Whether it is the decision to change or not change the channel, read or toss aside a magazine, buy or not buy a product, or simply the quality of those experiences, images are powerful. As consumers of pop culture our responses are measured in sales and ratings, but if there is a monopoly on that product, like the Olympics, the quality of that event is left to the whim of the Planning Committee. I say as consumers we are justified in feeling indignant if we think that an element of that product does not live up to the high ideals embodied in the event.
So I say that if we the public start feeling like that Texas oil millionaire, it’s time to throw the elitist snob’s out on their behind.
Here is a comment by one of the defender’s of the logo. They say the best defense is a good offense, so pay close attention to the language this “design professional” uses. I hope you see the irony:
Beauty is inherently elitist. It is full of rules and codes shared and acquainted only by the initiated. Beauty for being mysterious and enigmatic because no one knows it and when you grasp it, someone else tells you "you are so last season"... well, the TV shot beauty and MySpace and globalization finally killed it.Is this really such a loss? I don't think so. Aesthetics will always be used to separate people so you can bet on a next hype of orthodox old graphic design, and also to create desire out of pure void so it'll be cheap and fun (like it's always been). But if ugliness, postmodernism and democratization are the way to do those things so be it, I'm going to love every second of this trend. Orthodox graphic design doesn't have any sense of humor and has led to a boring generation of young graphic designers (the ones who praise Pentagram) that made dissidence (a.k.a. creativity) almost impossible, our very own artistic mix of state police and royal absolutists.My closing thoughts: F..k Vignelly, f..k Pentagram and f..k Paul Rand... we may differ on our appreciation of their quality and contribution but I think we can all agree that THEY ARE BORING. We can still learn from them but, we better have fun with our jobs and stop referencing the past.Viva lo feo!Dani R
First of all, beauty is hard to define, but it can be measured. Many amazing scientific studies on what is and isn’t beautiful, or when discussing fellow humans, what is or isn’t sexually attractive, have come out in recent years. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but these studies show it is a lot less arbitrary than that. Beauty can truly be measured, quantified, and defined. What cannot be quantified are trends, and to some extent fashion. These are subject to the whims of society, but there are some underlying universal truths. Anorexic tan blondes may be the trend, but symmetry and proportion is still universal, and thus they are symmetrically anorexic and proportionately blonde.
Just as questions of ethics and human behavior bring controversy, so do these ideas of beauty and design. On the latter you have conservative religion and secular psychology on two ends of the spectrum. The religious types would scoff at psychological studies, and tell you we shouldn’t even attempt to study it scientifically; have faith, they have all the answers and will share them with you if you join them. The secularists would say much of the human experience can be measured and explained, and that those ideas belong to all of us. It is my opinion that the art world: the gallery owners, fashion magazine editors, designers, etc. are the high priests, bishops, popes of fashion. They want to dictate our tastes to us through their hierarchy, worship in their stores, and pretend that they have not spent many fortunes hiding evidence contradicting them in their vaults, and ridiculing the heretics that dare question them.
Which brings us back to the Lisa Simpson/ Olympics logo.
If you define yourself by what you are not, then you are giving creditability to that which you seek to escape. Like the punk rock kid's who were trying to be individuals, but all end up looking like they are wearing uniforms (albeit leather with safety pins and anarchy patches) because they were trying so hard to be different that they let what they aren't projecting define what they were. "Devil worshippers" give credibility to Christians by accepting their argument that if you aren't following God's rules you must be a follower of Satan.
If these designers were truly groundbreaking, redefining how we communicate, then they wouldn't spend so much time trying to create contrast to what they were not.
An old saying is, "If a student hasn't learned, a teacher hasn't taught." Taking the same analogy, one can measure quantitatively how much a viewer has retained after being exposed to an attempt to communicate. Show me a study comparing what the creator intended vs. how much the viewer retained in both the traditional, and the new formats, and I might pay attention. I suspect that the latter would prevail, and therefore one could prove quantitatively that the communicator had failed.
If I wanted to listen to a rambling drunk who never got to the point, I would got to the bar, and not read Henry Miller. If I wanted to look at random shapes and bright colors with no intent or meaning, I would give some monkeys some fluorescent paint to throw at the wall with their poo.
Wolff Olins creative director Patrick Cox claimed that “Its design is intentionally raw, it doesn’t… ask to be liked very much. It was meant to provoke a response, like the little thorn in the chair that gets you to breathe in, sit up and take notice.”
There are plenty of things that get our attention as we stumble through life. I notice dog feces on the sidewalk, especially if it smells strongly. This evokes a response and emotions. I step around with disgust, and anger at the owners who allowed it to be in a shared public space. I’m not sure, but I don’t think that similar responses were desired by the Olympic Planning Committee who will emblazon this logo on everything from uniforms, to souvenir programs and clothing.
You may think me a bit harsh, but there is an old stereotype we have all seen of the Nouveau Rich, yet uneducated rube, (typically portrayed on screen as a Texas oil millionaire,) who upon looking at some modernistic painting comments “I may not know art, but I know what I like.” This person is then looked at scornfully by people who, we are told, are much more sophisticated and educated. The joke is that we should then dismiss this moneyed but crude person, and the lesson; that money doesn’t buy taste. Having seen many a mega yacht with a hideous interior, (and often exterior,) design, I could easily be led to identify with this stereotype. After reading the blogs critiquing and defending the Lisa Simpson/ Olympic Logo, I think deconstruction of this scenario is called for.
In 2012, the world will tune in to the London Olympics, and if this logo survived we will see it in every screenshot of Olympians either soaring to new heights, or crushed by performances falling short of the podium. The stories behind these athletes embody all that is good and altruistic, (or sometimes the opposite,) in human achievement. As members of the human race, we will all identify with something or someone in those arenas. Don’t we all then collectively have the right to demand a high standard for the imagery associated with these events?
Images evoke emotions, associations leading to memories, and prompt us to take action. Whether it is the decision to change or not change the channel, read or toss aside a magazine, buy or not buy a product, or simply the quality of those experiences, images are powerful. As consumers of pop culture our responses are measured in sales and ratings, but if there is a monopoly on that product, like the Olympics, the quality of that event is left to the whim of the Planning Committee. I say as consumers we are justified in feeling indignant if we think that an element of that product does not live up to the high ideals embodied in the event.
So I say that if we the public start feeling like that Texas oil millionaire, it’s time to throw the elitist snob’s out on their behind.
Here is a comment by one of the defender’s of the logo. They say the best defense is a good offense, so pay close attention to the language this “design professional” uses. I hope you see the irony:
Beauty is inherently elitist. It is full of rules and codes shared and acquainted only by the initiated. Beauty for being mysterious and enigmatic because no one knows it and when you grasp it, someone else tells you "you are so last season"... well, the TV shot beauty and MySpace and globalization finally killed it.Is this really such a loss? I don't think so. Aesthetics will always be used to separate people so you can bet on a next hype of orthodox old graphic design, and also to create desire out of pure void so it'll be cheap and fun (like it's always been). But if ugliness, postmodernism and democratization are the way to do those things so be it, I'm going to love every second of this trend. Orthodox graphic design doesn't have any sense of humor and has led to a boring generation of young graphic designers (the ones who praise Pentagram) that made dissidence (a.k.a. creativity) almost impossible, our very own artistic mix of state police and royal absolutists.My closing thoughts: F..k Vignelly, f..k Pentagram and f..k Paul Rand... we may differ on our appreciation of their quality and contribution but I think we can all agree that THEY ARE BORING. We can still learn from them but, we better have fun with our jobs and stop referencing the past.Viva lo feo!Dani R
First of all, beauty is hard to define, but it can be measured. Many amazing scientific studies on what is and isn’t beautiful, or when discussing fellow humans, what is or isn’t sexually attractive, have come out in recent years. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but these studies show it is a lot less arbitrary than that. Beauty can truly be measured, quantified, and defined. What cannot be quantified are trends, and to some extent fashion. These are subject to the whims of society, but there are some underlying universal truths. Anorexic tan blondes may be the trend, but symmetry and proportion is still universal, and thus they are symmetrically anorexic and proportionately blonde.
Just as questions of ethics and human behavior bring controversy, so do these ideas of beauty and design. On the latter you have conservative religion and secular psychology on two ends of the spectrum. The religious types would scoff at psychological studies, and tell you we shouldn’t even attempt to study it scientifically; have faith, they have all the answers and will share them with you if you join them. The secularists would say much of the human experience can be measured and explained, and that those ideas belong to all of us. It is my opinion that the art world: the gallery owners, fashion magazine editors, designers, etc. are the high priests, bishops, popes of fashion. They want to dictate our tastes to us through their hierarchy, worship in their stores, and pretend that they have not spent many fortunes hiding evidence contradicting them in their vaults, and ridiculing the heretics that dare question them.
Which brings us back to the Lisa Simpson/ Olympics logo.
If you define yourself by what you are not, then you are giving creditability to that which you seek to escape. Like the punk rock kid's who were trying to be individuals, but all end up looking like they are wearing uniforms (albeit leather with safety pins and anarchy patches) because they were trying so hard to be different that they let what they aren't projecting define what they were. "Devil worshippers" give credibility to Christians by accepting their argument that if you aren't following God's rules you must be a follower of Satan.
If these designers were truly groundbreaking, redefining how we communicate, then they wouldn't spend so much time trying to create contrast to what they were not.
An old saying is, "If a student hasn't learned, a teacher hasn't taught." Taking the same analogy, one can measure quantitatively how much a viewer has retained after being exposed to an attempt to communicate. Show me a study comparing what the creator intended vs. how much the viewer retained in both the traditional, and the new formats, and I might pay attention. I suspect that the latter would prevail, and therefore one could prove quantitatively that the communicator had failed.
If I wanted to listen to a rambling drunk who never got to the point, I would got to the bar, and not read Henry Miller. If I wanted to look at random shapes and bright colors with no intent or meaning, I would give some monkeys some fluorescent paint to throw at the wall with their poo.
Nice blog, and I totally agree with you. With beauty being something that can be measured, why do you need a logo that is "provoking?" Why not just make it more beautiful? To me, the Olympic rings themselves and what they represent are beautiful, (not to mention the fact they're symmetrical ;) ) so why not just embody the rings in an attractive manner and call it good? I'd suppose it all comes down to what the so-called people in power wanted... Which has a nasty tendency lately to be money.
ReplyDeleteI guess the author did not read anything about: 'everyone's Olympic, everyone Olympic', the underlying idea, the ibrand idea. The author has also no idea what practically could be done with such a shape. And the author is a bit late with the comment, as actally people start to like the look and feel of the London 2012 designs.
ReplyDelete