London Olympics 2012

[Youngfox]

It seems to be an effective logo but the desired effect is questionable. The animated logo apparently causes seizures.

"Epileptics force Olympic logo offline as public’s alternative designs pour in"
Twenty-four hours after its launch, an epilepsy expert claimed that part of the animated footage of the London 2012 Olympic emblem had caused a number of fits, forcing organisers to remove part of the film.

_http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/london_2012/article1890341.ece

 

[Z...]

My reaction is one of wanting to shake off something infectious or dirty, almost as though it has some kind of ugly subliminal message.

same here

btw it seems the logo was also accused of triggering epileptic fits
I remember seeing headline somwhere recently,

or maybe I just dreamt it !? Not so sure anymore

 

[Z...]

Ok we posted in the same time Youngfox, so it wasnt a dream after all

 

[Kel]

I just asked my 5 y.o. boy what he thought of the logo/picture.

He likes it. I reminds him of "Zoom". Whatever that is. He said the picture made him happy.

"It looks like fun!"

Just another perspective...

 

[anart]

I just asked my 5 y.o. boy what he thought of the logo/picture.

He likes it. I reminds him of "Zoom". Whatever that is. He said the picture made him happy.

"It looks like fun!"

Just another perspective...

And a pretty perceptive one, really - it does look like a Z followed by the five olympic Os inside a M-ish looking thing. And, the colors probably do look like fun to a 5 year old - funny.

Maybe they were designing it for five year olds? (and to make adults recoil in visual agony?) ;)

 

[Beau]

Well, it looks like something I may have drawn AT five years old

 

[Kel]

Yes, and considering that my 5 y.o. son is in the "narcissistic" stage of his development, what does that say about those who chose this logo?
Or who they are trying to appeal to?

 

[mada85]

You made some good points yesterday, Tigersoap, thanks to which I saw again a program that sometimes runs in me. I now want to address some other points you raised.

The question would be, why does it trigger such a strong reaction in you ?

Because it is a violent image, lacking in harmony. Because I am sensitive to my visual environment. Because it is disturbing. The designers and the Olympic committee probably think it communicates dynamism, energy and activity, and those kinds of ideas. As a designer and illustrator, you should know that there are many ways of communicating such ideas and creating something harmonious.

Wolff Olins may well have designed circular logos for other clients, but that is beside the point. My concern is with the 2012 London Olympics logo.

Yes, and considering that my 5 y.o. son is in the "narcissistic" stage of his development, what does that say about those who chose this logo?
Or who they are trying to appeal to?

Kel's point is valid. Just who are they trying to appeal to? Seb Coe says it is 'young people around the world'. If it appeals to young people I think it shows a rather sad state of affairs. Have young people been dumbed down so much that beauty is no longer appealing? I know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I know that, objectively speaking, things are what they are according to their own self-nature, and that is their beauty. But we live at a level of reality where objectivity is 99% absent, and our organisms, being subject to certain laws, perceive particular proportions and shapes as beautiful and harmonious: for example, the golden rectangle as derived from the golden ratio. So, the question then is, since this logo displays none of the attributes of beauty and harmony in relation to the natural laws of our organisms, why do some people find it appealing? Why was it chosen?

Why do you need to prove there is something sinister in it ?

Actually I said 'unwholesome', which doesn't mean the same as 'sinister'.

I do think there is something unwholesome going on here. The Olympics are a global event with massive media exposure and in those conditions, the logo takes on extra symbolic 'weight'.

How do you derive a 'need to prove there is something sinister in it' from 'I think there is something unwholesome going on'?

I don't care about the logo one bit in the end.
There are more important things happening in the UK than this mediocre choice of pseudo-trendy marketing.

I care about it because I care about our visual environment. I care because the visual environment communicates with us all the time, whether we are conscious of it or not. We are constantly exposed to it; the Olympics logo may be a 'mediocre choice of pseudo-trendy marketing', but millions are going to see it every day.

The question is: Why don't you care?

Do you agree with this statement from adam7117?

…the whole of Creation, All around is of some archetypical significance…

Those of us who may be more awake than Joe Public, and who work with visual arts in any capacity, and are or wish to be STO candidates, have a responsibility to create work that is beautiful and in harmony with natural laws and proportions, in my opinion.

Added: The exception would be when STO candidates wish to help Joe Public to awaken. In that case use of the visual language that Joe Public is acclimatised to, whether ugly or not, is appropriate. But I still think it is possible to create something harmonious, even in that situation. This hardly applies to the Olympics logo though – the Olympics are a major UK government initiative.

Added: The Golden Ratio is 1:1.61803.
1.61803 is an irrational number, otherwise known as phi.
Wikipedia has more information here.

In modern times there has been much interest in the Golden Proportion, Section or Mean. Since the Renaissance it has been used extensively in art and architecture, it figures in the Venetian Church of St. Mark built early in the 16th century, and has become a standard proportion for width in relation to height as used in facades of buildings, in window sizing, in first story to second story proportion, at times in the dimensions of paintings and picture frames. There is something "satisfactory" about the relationships of the Greek "divided lines" proportion, which some have felt to be modern acculturation since the Renaissance. In the l930's the Pratt Institute of New York did a study on various rectangular proportions laid out as vertical frames, and asked several hundred art students to comment on which seemed the most pleasing. The ratio of 1 : 2 was least liked, while the Golden Ratio was favored by a very large margin, which seemed to point to the actual dimensions as generating a pleasing response by their size.

The French architect LeCorbusier noted that the human body when measured from foot to navel and then again from navel to top of head, showed average numbers very near to the Golden Ratio. He extended this to height compared with arm-span, and designed doorways consonant with these numbers. But of course much of this was based in averages rather than exact numbers, and so falls into the general area of esthetic design, rather than mathematical proportion.

However studies have shown that the patterns of tree- branching adhere to the GM [Golden Mean] proportion, although again not exactly, while the dendritic cracking in certain metallic alloys which occurs as very low temperatures is basically GM based. In an entirely different area, Duckworth at Princeton found in the early l940's a GM relationship in the length of paragraphs in Vergil's Aeneid, with the figures becoming ever more accurate as larger samples were taken. Lendvai has demonstrated that Bartok used the GM ratio extensively in composing music, the question remaining whether an artist as an educated person uses the GM ratio consciously as a framework for his work, or unconsciously because of its ubiquitous appearance in the world around us, something we sense by living in a GM proportioned world.

The full text from which the above quote is taken can be found here.

 

[Tigersoap]

The question is: Why don't you care?

I already said why I did not care.
It's a distraction (like this post o_o)
It's like discussing which song is better than another one.

Unlike you, in this case, I accept the fact that there are things I will dislike in this world and I think it's a "good" thing that they exist. I don't try to impose what I think is "good" to me to other people.
I have my tastes like you do, born from my education, surroundings, programing and personal experiences. And it's up to us to get out from this jungle.

I don't believe in one "beauty" for all, that's diminishing creation.
Althoug we can discuss our perception of it I am not sure it will lead somewhere because neither of us see "objectively".

To say this logo is ugly and impose your perception on others is STS as well imho.


You base everything you said on the golden ratio, allow me to link this short article by Mario Livio, author of the book "The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi"

http://plus.maths.org/issue22/features/golden/

I will certainly not attempt to make the ultimate sense of sex appeal in an article on the Golden Ratio. I would like to point out, however, that the human face provides us with hundreds of lengths to choose from. If you have the patience to juggle and manipulate the numbers in various ways, you are bound to come up with some ratios that are equal to the Golden Ratio.

Furthermore, I should note that the literature is bursting with false claims and misconceptions about the appearance of the Golden Ratio in the arts (e.g. in the works of Giotto, Seurat, Mondrian). The history of art has nevertheless shown that artists who have produced works of truly lasting value are precisely those who have departed from any formal canon for aesthetics. In spite of the Golden Ratio's truly amazing mathematical properties, and its propensity to pop up where least expected in natural phenomena, I believe that we should abandon its application as some sort of universal standard for "beauty," either in the human face or in the arts.

I am still open to both possibilites and I also take the words of Mario Livio with a grain of salt (maybe another thread on the golden ratio would be interesting) but like I said previously, I doubt that there is a "standard" for beauty because in my view, it's contrary to creation itself.

How do you derive a 'need to prove there is something sinister in it' from 'I think there is something unwholesome going on'?

You spent some time dissecting the logo and trying to understand that there is something hidden behind it so I used this term.
I don't see why you pinpoint this because when I look at the definition of unwholesome it's quite close but english ain't my first language you know.

 

[anart]

You made some good points yesterday, Tigersoap, thanks to which I saw again a program that sometimes runs in me. I now want to address some other points you raised.

Hi, mada - I could be wrong here, but I thought I'd mention that this sounds like you recognized the program when tigersoap pointed it out, and, then, your programs popped back up and said, "yeah, but...." - resulting in you going into a bit of a legalistic thinking mode - almost nit-picking certain points.

As I said, I could be wrong, but it does have the flavor of a program 'back-lash' as it were - fwiw.

 

[mada85]

Hi, mada - I could be wrong here, but I thought I'd mention that this sounds like you recognized the program when tigersoap pointed it out, and, then, your programs popped back up and said, "yeah, but...." - resulting in you going into a bit of a legalistic thinking mode - almost nit-picking certain points.

Thank you, anart, you're absolutely correct. I saw the 'back-lash' yesterday, after I read Tigersoap's reply. Seeing these programs in myself destroys my illusory ideas of who I am and creates a sensation of 'inner hollowing'. I decided to stay with the sensations, thoughts and feelings this evoked before responding to Tigersoap. I really appreciate your sensitive external considering, anart – you made this post much easier for me. Tigersoap, I apologise for trying to drag you into a debate where I just wanted to prove myself right.

As I said, I could be wrong, but it does have the flavor of a program 'back-lash' as it were - fwiw.

It's worth a lot.