The new logo is startling but, once you get tuned into it, rather good, capturing a whiff of the edginess that makes London such an interesting city. Rather than pandering to the absurd illusion that our capital is a British Barcelona or Sydney, the designers have looked to the jagged shapes and garish colours of graffiti artists. The message conveyed is that London 2012 is represented better by awkward youthful dynamism than by plump corporate dreariness.What is that message? It seems to be "Welcome to London. We are obviously not in the same league as Barcelona or Sydney, but we do have a lot of low-level crime like graffiti."
If we have so little affection for our own culture and history, why should we expect anyone else to like us?
I've seen better graffiti tags on the side of tube carraiges. And I fear it will encourage copy-cat spraying -- vandalism, not art, let alone a symbol of London's 'dynamism'
ReplyDelete