logo / no logo

A little while back, I failed to go in time to an exhibition of the designs created by Otl Aicher for the 1972 Munich Olympics. Now recognised as design classics, Aicher’s work achieved two remarkable goals.

First, in view of the historical resonances of holding the games in Munich, he ensured that the athletes portrayed were free from any identifiable nationalistic characteristics – ie they were free of ego, jingoism, and in some ways time.

Secondly he created a simple design system based on the minimal graphic detail necessary to convey meaning. He invented those little stick people you see everywhere, from toilets to pedestrian crossings to biscuits. .

Get that. He invented them. That’s what I call a legacy.

Contrast of course the disastrous 2012 logo unveiled this week. Normally when the press get all uppity about a piece of art it is a sure sign that the plebeian populist masses are flaunting their ignorance, but not this time. The contrast with Aicher’s work couldn’t be more dramatic. The 2012 logo is cluttered, messy, full of ego. Like a bad dancing dad at a bar mitzvah disco, it tries to be cool and hip and misses by an embarrassing margin. Graffiti art my arse. Somebody said in the paper (but I wish I had thought of it) that it was a broken and fragmented symbol for a broken and fragmented city.

Looking at the 2012 website just now, I was drawn to a section headed “watch a film and find out about the new brand.” (note the Toby Litt style plain English). The film starts with a fat greasy woman walking into a garden shed with an old cardboard box of rubbish. Really, I kid you not. Then she says, in that kind of plain speaking voice that actors in government infomercials use to indicate that they are real and honest people: “I don’t think I’m proud of anything in particular”. Fuck off then I shouted at my monitor as I turned the film off.

Yeah well the way its going, 2012 is going to be something else not to be proud of. Remind me to get out of the city before then.