print, media and all things creative

In the Olympic spirit, today I’m going to discuss the London 2012 logo, which in my previous post I labeled as a “monstrosity that makes no sense”. I was not exaggerating here – let’s take a look:

Just kidding, that was one created by someone drunk and/or high on acid – here’s is the real thing:

Oh wait, that is the actual logo.

So what’s the big deal about this logo, that is to represent the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London? Besides the fact that it is… insane? It cost £400,000. I know you are scratching your head trying to do a conversion into Canadian or American dollars right now, but let me do it for you: it’s a jillion.

Designed by international branding company Wolff Olins, the London 2012 logo created a huge controversy and uproar in London. I’ll vouch for this since I was living in London at the time of its reveal, back in the summer of 2007.

An animated version of the logo caused epileptic seizures so it had to be pulled. People compared it to Lisa Simpson performing oral sex on an animal. A petition was started to try and revert it to the bidding logo (which is this one). All in all, response was no good.

The attempt to attract a younger generation, represent London’s Euro skinny jeaned electro goodness and be different didn’t successfully appeal to me in anyway (although it did prompt me to write a post 2.5 years later). I can’t wait to see what the mascots are going to look like.

The Olympic (logo) games – rearrange the logo pieces to create something even cooler
BBC – Alternate Olympic logos from readers and views

Since Vancouver 2010 is just around the corner, I thought I’d babble a bit about the mascots behind these upcoming Canadian Olympic winter games. Through the years, there have been some pretty cool and interesting mascots to support the games – some good, some not so good. When they are good, people just go gaga over them. In fact, I was in Beijing at the end of 2007 and people (myself included) were going absolutely wild over Jing Jing and the gang. Almost every Olympic souvenir that was sold had the animals on them.

So what happened after the cutie Chinese crew left? Quatchi stepped in. And boy, is he the best mascot of any Olympic games EVER. He wears earmuffs and has a tattoo on his bicep!!!

I love how the Canadian games took on a quirky and sweet spin on their mascots. Sumi and Miga are great too, but Quatchi just stole my heart. The characters are reminiscent of a modern day Miffy, aren’t they?

If you’re curious to see some of the other mascots in past years (and trust me, they don’t hold a candle to our Canucks), here’s a good laugh. All images courtesy of ctv.ca:

Sydney 2000: 2 out of 5 stars (is it me or do they look extra naked?)

Torino 2006: 1 out of 5 stars (was this illustrator aged 10?!)

Barcelona 1992: 3 out of 5 (Cobi might be simple, but I guess he's got a bit of character)

Albertville 1992: 1.5 out of 5 (he is "half-man, half-star"... who comes up with these??)

Nagano 1998: 2.5 out of 5 (this must be from the same artist that did Torino, except he was 6 years younger at that time. They are pretty charming, though)

Beijing 2008: 4 out of 5 (finally, mascots I want to have on my paraphernalia!)

Now don’t even get me started on London 2012 logo… or as I’d like to call, the £400,000 monstrosity that makes no sense. But that’s another post altogether.

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If you like the Vancouver 2010 mascots, check out these fun links:

Which mascot are you like?
Play one-on-one hockey with the mascots
Get desktop wallpapers!

We met Jasmine, a classical pop singer, through our good friend Peaches of Lotus. In our first meeting, Jasmine was a typically quiet, shy teenager amongst a group of adults, who happened to be talking about her. And her potentially blow-up huge career. You see, Jasmine may be a petite 13-year-old with a cute face, but when she opens her mouth to sing, you’d think it you were in the presence of a young Sarah Brightman (yes, this comparison has been passed around the office).

Jasmine is releasing her first single, One Heart, just in time for the Art for the Arts Valentine Gala at the Rose Theatre in Brampton (tickets are available online). We had the pleasure of working with her and her family on the CD, and it was pretty fun trying to bring the wilder side out of Jasmine. Studio shots are courtesy of our in-house portraiture pro, Keith.

Check out her single (and her amazing voice) here:

We’re really happy with the final product – we designed and printed all the CD sleeves and CDs. If you’re looking for CDs or DVDs, we provide duplication services, watershield and thermal disc printing, packaging design and print, with no minimum orders.

What it’s like to be a teen again!

True Jazz is an artist management agency, founded by Leslie Wong, who happens to be a seasoned musician himself. These business cards are a part of his company rebrand, which includes a brand new website that we’re working on as well (with Silverpoint).

We designed these beautiful matte and spot lamination cards and are totally drooling over them. The colourless gloss damask pattern over the black matte turned out even better than we’d imagine.

As our sister company Papertalk Press posted, Latenightshooters are a collective of people who are passionate about making short films and videos, and Stak is on their ship designing the LNS brand and website.

We just finished designing and printing their business cards, which are of a cool metallic persuasion. With this type of metallic printing, you can turn pretty much any colour into a metal through the process of adding a special silvery metallic ink.

The holidays are here, and the past few weeks have been regular jobs scattered with holiday cards for our clients. This week we finished up the cards for our partner company, Silverpoint Media as well as our own.

To all the folks out there who haven’t started their shopping yet – we’re with you!  We now envy the folks that start their shopping in August… whatever your case may be, good luck out there, and all the best this holiday season. Lots of good food and cheer, from Stak!