London 2012 Logo = Slowest news day ever?
I’m sure you’ve read at least a dozen blog entries out there as to how ugly the London 2012 Olympic logo is. If you haven’t, here’s a few links to get you started:
- @SpeakUp (Good overall overview and review)
- @Typophile
- @tailwind
I won’t waste another blog entry on talking about how much I love or hate the logo. However, I will take a moment to rant about the apparent lack of quality design critique out there. Most of the design-centric blogs covering the logo issue have 100+ comments each from fellow graphic designers. I’m saddened to see that only a small percentage take the time or effort to support their opinion with a foundation in design principles.
The ones that do seem to take some time to analyze the solution from a business perspective seem to ultimately come to the conclusion that it’s probably not that bad of a solution. See Armin’s post @SpeakUp (link above), the Tailwind link (also above) and perhaps the most sensible critique I’ve yet read by Bryan over at Coudal Partners for examples.
Yes, this *is* the internet and it was designed specifically for everyone to rant and rave with no rhyme or reason, so I suppose I’m arguing against the masses on this one. I just miss a damn good design critique.
6 Comments
Hi there, thanks for the link. Just one thing, I’m entirely in support of the new identity and am not panning it whatsoever.
http://tailwind.wordpress.com/tag/london-2012/
Warren, I didn’t mean to imply you were panning it (see my 3rd paragraph). I was mainly referring to the comment threads spawning from most of these discussions.
“I’m saddened to see that only a small percentage take the time or effort to support their opinion with a foundation in design principles.”
Thats assuming that many of the commenters even know design principles or were ever taught to critique design at all.
The whole logo conversation is bringing back all the horrible design school critique experiences where all anyone could say was, “I like it”. I don’t know about elsewhere, but in my education experience, students were rarely given examples of how to critique comps, let alone an idea or a finished ID. Seems like the issue hasn’t lessened in the “real world”. Especially in a world with easily available creative tools that make everyone “a designer” and everyone else a critic.
Even if we can explain the reason it still hurts to know that even in the world of professional designers all our time and energy is being reduced to like/dislike. And yet we wonder why our clients fail to see the value of design.
“Thats assuming that many of the commenters even know design principles or were ever taught to critique design at all.”
Yes, perhaps I am assuming too much.
I had a couple of good professors that taught that critiquing work is as an important of a skill as creating work. Many times were were lambasted in class for giving bad critiques moreso than handing in bad work. ;o)
“Even if we can explain the reason it still hurts to know that even in the world of professional designers all our time and energy is being reduced to like/dislike.”
EXCELLENT point! I agree. Many of the comments regarding the logo on other design blogs were “That logo is just plain ugly…no wonder the world doesn’t resepct our profession.” I’m with you in that the lack of quality commentary on the logo seems to be a bigger detriment to our profession than any one particular logo ever would be.
Not sure I agree with you on this one Darrel. I find that comments are just simple snapshots of a persons passing opinion. I would not expect nor do I often practice leaving indepth comments or researched backed critique, hopefully the article that i just read had a even review or even a skewed one, if i want to give some indepth critique i would write my own blog post and run a trackback to it =)
Hey Darrel, I don’t see a way to e-mail ya so I’m commenting here to tip-my-hat to ya for one of your
Luv’d it.
Cheers & Beers!
DA