I don't know. I haven't warmed to it yet. Kudos to the London committee for their progressive thinking, but I think they missed the boat when trying to design this "youth-targeted" brand. Seems there frame of reference was early-80s MTV. But who knows, maybe that will be the style again in 5 years.

Apparently the new 2012 mark isn't being well received. Here are some alternatives created by the public.

Thanks for the post, James. I am interested in city and national identities. I guess this 2012 is more of an Olympic thing, though. Reminds me of the Cool Britannia push and this interesting website of the iconic items and images of London/UK.

And the 2012 logo revolt continues. So horrid that it can cause seizures (when animated). More design comments on the SpeakUp Blog.

Its amazing how much attention this logo is getting. I find it comical that it has gotten to the point where 30,000 plus people have signed a petion to remove this. Can this spawn a new era where bad design is illegal? Sure its not the most brilliant design work I've seen, but does it warrant all this buzz? But I do love that so many people, including the British government are paying this much attention to design. Here are a few links to sites that have interesting coverage on the ongoing debates and dialogue: enthusiastic pictures of Lord Coe on Unbeige 10 reasons why Coudal Partners thinks you should love the logo design observer article

I finally noticed the 2012 in it. I couldn't get past how bad it was.

It is getting hard to find the video to which James first linked. It is the one pulled because of the seizure risk. Here it is on YouTube. Take a look if you can withstand the flashing neon. Some of the YouTube copies have already been removed at the request of the Olympic Committee.

i heard it cost around 800 thousand dollars to create? could that be true?

wow haven't heard so much commotion since the new trillium logo for the province of Ontario I think it sucks. Colors are ugly. It doesn't feel like olympics, it feels like a video contest. Just terrible. Why are they doing this? Why?

Here is another link to the Ontario Trillium Logo that Ghazaleh posted. This whole thing is interesting because it brings to light differences in designing for the public or community versus corporate identities. Perhaps these public identities call for a participatory design approach.

Some comments on London 2012 by the designer of the 1968 Olympic identity.

Jimmy Kimmel just joined in on the logo bashing, calling it "the worst logo in the history of logos."