Why not get Londoners to design a London 2012 logo?

By now, everyone has heard about the fiasco that has accompanied the launch of the design of the new London 2012 logo. In fact, I haven’t seen this kind of public outcry about a logo since the Toronto Unlimited logo kerfuffle from a couple of years ago.

However, unlike the Toronto Unlimited campaign — which I learned to love after seeing the accompanying brand launch video and the whole idea behind the swoosh-like design — the London 2012 logo doesn’t look like it will grow on me. First of all, it doesn’t say ‘London’ or ‘sports’ to me at all. The launch video is seizure-inducing and not very coherent, and the design of the whole campaign definitely does not instill connection with the city or the games.

Now, I understand that everyone has their own preferences, so I’m not going to use this whole post to complain about the design. What I am going to do is question the validity of paying over $850,000 to a design firm to come up with a logo that is supposed to represent the citizens of a city. While there is merit in getting professionals to create corporate brand identity, I do feel that the best way to get the true sentiment of the people in a city is by getting those same people to do some design work themselves. For free.

The London Paper had a contest for its readers to design an alternative London 2012 logo, and while many of the designs were pedantic and uninspired, they at least told a story as to what is truly important to Londoners.

As you can see from the examples in the paper, every single one of these designs says either “London” or “sports” or “Olympics” -and sometimes all three- very powerfully, which is something the current logo fails to do. Of course, these are but a few of the examples, and they all need a bit of refinement before they can be rolled out to the public as the official identity of the 2012 games, but they are each examples of the passion Londoners have for their city — something completely missing from the current London 2012 identity right now.

My suggestion? Next time, get the public to design their concept of the logo. Offer the winner a prize (tickets to the Olympic venues?) and a chance to work with a professional PR firm to work with the official logo, which would end up costing much less than the close-to-million-dollars that the current effort cost. It’s not a revolutionary idea, but it’s one that the London 2012 organizers must have forgotten before jumping into their branding exercise.

UPDATE: Greg Storey linked to Daniel Eatock’s design for the London 2012 logo that he created in 2003. I love it.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Telegraph has a whole list of great logo submissions by Londoners. The submissions by Chris Voysey and James Wren are particularly inspired.