The 2012 London Olympics Logo - Essay Example

London The increasing cases of religious extremism in Islam and rising trend of suspicion in the society has not left London without controversy. In the wake of media explosion, sensitivity of logos or images that pertains to religious inclinations has raised debate in London .The Logo of Olympic with 2012 elicited a heated conflict that overtook various media across UK and the world owing to the divergent interpretation it attracted. It is obvious that different cultural backgrounds attach diverse meaning to images. In that regard, the Olympic logo was coincidentally misinterpreted by Iranian nationalities as advancing the political ideology of Israel. Although most nations were comfortable with the logo, Iranian reaction provoked intense debate and this attracted contribution of scholars, political leaders and the general public. This became a pressing issue that was likely to escalate to the extent of affecting participation of all countries in the Olympics. It is evident that such a logo can be of great socio-political insinuation if not well taken care of. The 2012 London Olympics logo is a jagged emblem that came in a series of colors. This included shades of pink, orange, blue and green. According to the chairman of the London 2012 Olympics organizing committee, the logo’s number 2012 was designed with the intention to make it appeal to the internet generation of today. The logo designed by Wolf Olins had the number 2012 jagged in a particular font that the designer deemed impressive (Garcia,7). However, this logo elicited a lot of debate over its design. This was owing to the different perceptions people had about the image. From Wolf Olins’ angle he just jagged about the number 2012 to get an impressive image attractive to the internet using generation but from other people’s perception, the logo had different meanings depending on their school of thought or rather their visual reasoning skills (Garcia, 9). First is the perception of the logo by Iranians. Iran was too taken by the 2012 London Olympics logo. Almost four years after the logo was designed a new perception by an Iranian athlete brought a twist to the perceptions about the logo. Tehran an Iranian athlete threatened boycotting the race unless the organizers moved with speed to change the logo. In his view or understanding, the logo depicted the word “Zion”. It should be noted that it was a jagged font that represented the four figures 2012 (Nudd, 1). The Iranian government on the other end had its perception of the same. According to them, the logo represented an Israeli conspiracy that was veiled. This lead to a formal letter being written to the committee that organized the 2012 Olympics from Tehran demanding a change or redesigning of the logo or otherwise all Iranian athletes would boycott the race. They thus viewed the use of the word Zion in the 2012 Olympics as a very disgracing move and against the mottos of the Olympics that are seriously valued (Asghari & Moosavi, 23) . Several people made reference to the logo as depicting Zion and some internet documents as well supported the same argument. There were also YouTube videos that gave an explanation on how the letters could be arranged to come up with Zion. The clips gave the transition on how the logo could be actually the word Zion (Nudd, 1). There are also those who felt that the logo was just too disappointing. Others described it as bad work asking wolf the logo designer to step back, breathe a little deep and have at least a few eye drops! A rather funny comment from an Olympic fan but that was it. To some it was indeed a bad logo but to the Olympics committee it was a brand that constituted disjointed and jagged figures that would sell the Olympics to the world. What a difference in perception! It was to the committee a bold puzzle emblem that represented a brand that would attract the world to the Olympics. According to the Olympics committee, the logo simply graphically represented the year of the games, which was 2012. As for the colors which constituted orange, green blue and pink, they represented the youthful energy that would characterize the 2012 Olympics. A good approach one would think. However the communicated message was different resulting in to a disaster. From the Atlantic cities was a comment from the perception of Feargus OSullivan. He ended up describing the logo using derogatory term, “garish dogs dinner of a logo”. He further called it the biggest failure of the 2012 london Olympics. More funny was when he referred to the logo as accidentally fell on acid to get the “funny” colors or accidentally dropped on the floor then picked up in haste to join the pieces that were shattered together (Nudd, 1). A website gopetition.com was set up by persons who did not like the logo and the creator of the website strongly asserted his believe that this logo was a total embarrassment to the Olympic enthusiasts like him. He further added that the logo did portray the host nation UK in the worst of ways. This even led to misuse or mockery of the motto for the 2012 Olympics which was ‘inspiring generation’ to be used as inspiring hatred for the logo (Airey, 1). Indeed this was not what the committee in charge of organizing the 2012 Olympics in London wanted to have communicated. Neither was it the idea that the logo designer, Wolf Olins who was paid up to 4,000 UK Pounds wanted to have communicated (Nudd, 1). This is just a case of what happens through people’s minds when they see images. Their visual reasoning skills guide them to draw meaning from the images they see as was in the case with this London Olympics logo where an Iranian did not see 2012 but instead saw the word Zion. Picture designers would have their preferred message that they would intend to give to their audience but the perceptions of the images to be translated to the intended meaning depends on the peoples visual reasoning skills and how the picture too has been presented. Therefore it is not always automatic that whatever we one can make out of a picture is what the other will. As this essay looks at controversies around images, the London Olympics does provide a perfect example of this scenario. Works cited Garcia, Beatriz. "One hundred years of cultural programming within the Olympic Games (1912–2012): Origins, evolution and projections." International journal of cultural policy 14.4 (2008): 361-376. Retrieved on 11th April 2015 from: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10286630802445849#preview Koivunen, Kimmo, et al. "Towards deeper understanding of how people perceive design in products." CADE2004 Web Proceedings of Computers in Art and Design Education Conference, MA Eriksen, L. Malmborg, and J. Nielsen, eds., Sweden. 2004. Retrieved on 11th April 2015 from: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.58.4055&rep=rep1&type=pdf Asghari, Fatemeh, Morteza Dousti, and Seyyed Jafar Moosavi. "Review of the reasons and motives of national sports heroes to enter the realm of politics in Iran." International Journal of Sport Studies 3.5 (2013): 462-471. Boycott Retrieved on 11th April 2015 from: http://ijssjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/865-871.pdf Airey, David. davidairey.com. 1 3 2011. 3 4 2015 . Retrieved on 11th April 2015 from: http://www.davidairey.com/alternative-london-2012-logo-designs/ Nudd, Tim. ADWEEK. 8 8 2012. 3 4 2015 . Retrieved on 11th April 2015 from: http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/london-2012-olympic-logo-was-it-really-so-bad-after-all-142610 Read More