Hot off the presses, we’ve got a great example of yet another Olympics logo fail.
I’m sure you all remember the furore behind the allegedly epilepsy-inducing 2012 London Olympics logo. If you don’t, you’re likely to see a hell of a lot more of it in the coming months as the Games themselves approach. However, we’ve found another Olympics logo design fail which might even top the London failure!
The logo for the 2020 Madrid Olympics was released this week, and…well, it says 20020. Which isn’t really a year – at least not for a long time. There were problems with the 2012 London logo and the date – including a hilarious attempt from Iran to claim that the logo was a pro-Jewish plot, because if you squint you can read the word ‘zion’ (sort of) – but at least their date wasn’t typed wrong.
The Spanish press – and public – have been quick to mock the logo. They point out that the colors of the finger-shaped blocks behind the writing (which the official press release claims represent the Olympic rings melded with the arches of the Puerta de Alcala (a famous monument in Madrid)) are in the wrong colors, because there’s not a pink Olympic ring.
Spain’s biggest newspaper polled the public, and 80% of them came back and said they didn’t like the logo “at all.”
That’s a shame, because there was a pretty suitable logo for the Games which got warped through design-by-committee.
See, 22-year old Luis Peiret (above, looking relatively unhappy at the commitee-altered logo – he’d later say “This is not my design”) won a nationwide contest to design the Olympics logo. He got €6,000 for his winning design, which actually was pretty smart.
Peiret's original logo
It has the same sort of elements that the final logo has, but crucially you can see all of the text – and it becomes clear that it’s meant to read “M20″ (Madrid ’20).
It seems like this tweak was bungled, and what could’ve been a promising design element was wrecked.
What do you think about the logo? Which do you prefer? The original or the new one? And more importantly, can you do better?
