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Thanks to a kind source, Gothamist received the runner-up Olympic bid logo designs that Pentagram's Paula Scher worked on. The logo above, one of four variations (see below), has three sports represented - the three others have one or two sports, or simply buildings. Gothamist happens to like this direction better than the selected logo (a broader context of NYC, athletes), but in the context of the Olympics, it's too close to Miro's work, as well as previous Olympics logos for Barcelona and Sydney. Clearly, this designing a logo that captures many elements (NYC, the Olympics, athleticism, etc.) and keeps in mind certain design requirments (like the fact, as optimus brought up in comments yesterday, the logo needs to be blown up or reduced) is a huge challenge. And the selected design is okay - it's not offensive, it has certain good things about it, but overall, it's just underwhelming and the spoofs strike more of a chord. Of course, now that we've seen these runners-up, we're wondering if anyone else can send us some other considered designs.
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Looks like it should be on a white wine label.
I like the other logo better. This one has too much open space and from ten feet away looks like an indistinguishable group of lines. How is that going to look on a cheap white T-shirt or a keychain? Probably not so good. And, of course, that's the measure of a good logo, how it looks on a cheap white T-shirt.
Far better gesture than the official choice.
I can only imagine what working with the local Olympic comittee must have been like; it's a wonder that there's a logo at all.
Paula Sher rocks.
Come to think of it, I think the official logo is the only one I've seen in a while that isn't in the official Olympic-rings colors. I wonder why they decided to move away from that?
Does anyone know who else pitched? Was Landor involved?
The runner-up design is very New York, but I don't think it says enough about athletics. I do like how the logo kind of resembles the crown of the Statue of Liberty. It's not like it matters which design won, though, because the world hates America and we're not going to host an Olympiad anytime soon.
the sloppy-brushstroke-pathtool-look is WAAAAAY overplayed... barf.
It does scream Barcelona! although the new one does seem lame...
That's a joke, right? Maybe Paula Scher is so pissed off about every designer in the U.S. having ripped off her "Bring In Da Noise" posters that she decided to create something too crappy even for hack artists to imitate. Although from experience, this is what you can expect from pro bono work. *Cough* intern! *cough*
Vidiot, in an attempt to answer your question, I beleive that the Olympic rings were meant to represent the 5 continents of the world intermigling. Problem is (remeber they were designed by a German around 1940) when you start applying colors to countries- you get in trouble (in 2004). So no more color coded ethic group distictions.
I think
That's the problem with designing a logo with so many criterias; you have to please everybody and everybody's cousins,etc. I'll bet the inital(first or second presentation) designs were a lot better than what the end result looks like. If anything, the North American tend to be too abstract and tries to incorporate way too elements. A mascot would probably have been a better choice, but you would undoubtedly run into that whole it doesn't represent every racial group, etc.
I like the concept of the selected design but I feel the way it is rendered is rather stiff and literal. Paula Sher is a great designer but I am not really sold on her solutions for this one.
I just don't know why we don't have the obvious design: Liberty passing the torch to a waiting runner. It says Olympics, New York and Athleticism.
Or Liberty lighting the big Olympic Bowl 'O Fire.
Do I have to do *all* the work?
What is that green thing on the far left? A leaf?
The green thing on the left is a genuine New York loogie.
Weak! Like stunji said, the swashy brushstroke thing is not only cliché among logos in general, but a cliché among past Olympic logos as well.
They're never going to top the spectacular Los Angeles 1984 logo, but they could at least try.
i prefer the chosen logo to these... not saying it's perfect, but these are too diffuse. the other logo is a so much crisper.
the 'buildings' version of this logo looks like it could be a logo for toys in babeland.
It does not seem to convey a strong athletic message,seems too loose.
It does not seem to convey a strong athletic message,seems too loose.