Peter Jackson column

Jun 21 2007 By Peter Jackson, The Journal

You really can't be too careful when it comes to logos. Actually, it's hard to believe, looking at the 2012 Olympics logo, that the Games organisers put much care into their choice at all.

The logo, which it took the best part of a year for brand consultants Wolff Olins to devise, and which cost £400,000, has attracted widespread criticism, not to say derision and odium.

Commentator on modern culture Stephen Bayley has described it as "a puerile mess, an artistic flop and a commercial scandal", while there were reports that it caused some epilepsy sufferers, who watched its unveiling on television, to have fits.

One Jewish person even rang the BBC to complain that the logo is reminiscent of the Nazi SS symbol.

But, despite the best efforts of Lord - "we don't do bland, this is not a bland city" - Coe, it is difficult not to sympathise with the organisers.

Logos truly are minefield.

Only this week, for instance, it has been reported that if Barclays succeeds in taking over Dutch bank ABN Amro it will drop its famous blue eagle logo. Again, it seems, the Nazis are to blame, for the eagle strikes ABN Amro as being too similar to the Nazi version of Germany's eagle emblem, which, the Dutch having been occupied during the war, they understandably feel they've had their fill of.

Closer to home, I recall a story in the mid 1990s that Scottish and Newcastle had come up against an unexpected snag in their efforts to market Newcastle Brown Ale in Scotland.

The reason for this was the seemingly innocuous blue star logo on the label dating from 1928, the five points of the star representing the five founding breweries of Newcastle.

Unfortunately, many parts of Scotland are riven by the same sectarian rivalries that have troubled Northern Ireland, where a six pointed, blue star of David is one of the many emblems of the Ulster Protestant Loyalists.

You may think you're safe with a logo that looks like a meaningless squiggle, but nearly 10 years ago Unilever had to withdraw a symbol for Walls ice cream after protests in the Gulf States because, when viewed upside down and back to front, it seemed to spell Allah in Arabic.