Olympic Disaster!
Friday, June 8th, 2007
When London won the bid for the 2012 Olympics, fighting off fierce competition from Paris, New York, Madrid and Moscow, there was a true sense of jubilation. The first time in nearly 60 years that one of the landmark sporting events in the world would be held in Britain.
Sadly, since the halcyon days of the announcement, the Olympics saga has been marred by controversy over the budgets, the huge overspends totalling nearly four times the original estimate of £2.5 billion and now another disaster. The new logo for the 2012 Olympics. The words that spring to mind include awful, tatty, garish, appalling and hideous. The papers have been full of scorn and ridicule for the logo since it was unveiled and quite rightly so.
London as a capital city has a reputation to live up to. Whilst there is a tendency to sneer at radical and modern designs in the arts, this has none of the redeeming qualities that one can belatedly see in parts of the British modern art renaissance of the past decade. It was designed by what is, by all accounts, a reputable advertising agency at a cost of £400,000. It is such a shame when modern British design talent is now arguably the best in the world.