KEY POINTS:
The campaign to scrap the logo for the 2012 London Olympics has gone global and the host city's mayor has suggested its designers not be paid.
Bloggers around the world have criticised the design, with online comments comparing it to everything from a rejected logo of an early
90s children's programme to a failed softdrink label.
London's Mayor, Ken Livingstone, said the designers, Wolff Olins, should have their fee withheld. He told the BBC: "I wouldn't pay them a penny. Who would go to a firm like that again to ask them to do that work? I mean, this is a pretty basic thing."
Philip Davies, a Conservative member of the Commons culture, media and sports committee, said he would call for the logo to be scrapped. "It is incredible that someone has been paid £400,000 ($1.05 million) to come up with this garbage," he said.
The former Sports Minister, Kate Hoey, described the logo as a waste of money. "This could have been a wonderful logo that would have sold this great city. But it has only sold someone's ego."
But the co-founder of the design firm that created the logo implied that the protesters have been "lazy" in rushing to judgment.
Michael Wolff, who has since left Wolff Olins to form his own company, said that his former colleagues were being attacked for coming up with something "entirely new".
Writing in the Evening Standard, he warned: "When you don't quite know what you feel, and even when you think you do, it's best to mistrust your first reactions.
"Prejudice is comfortable and lazy. I think most of us will come to see this symbol as a breakthrough."
But by last night, more than 45,000 signatures had been added to an online petition calling for the logo to be changed. The creator of the petition, Jonathan Ellis, said the new logo was "ridiculous" and should be ditched. Rival petitions in favour of the logo have attracted derisory support.
- INDEPENDENT
Criticism Of Design Rings Around The World
Canada
'[It looks like] some sort of rejectedlogo of an early nineties children'sprogramme.'
- Jonathan Bradshaw, Toronto
Hungary
'Very painful to look at.'
- Zoltan Banffy, Budapest
France
'This logo is one of the worst I have ever seen: and that's a point of view of a typographer.'
- Cier Vianney, Bayonne
United Arab Emirates
'Like a failed soft drinks label.'
- David Barnett, Dubai
United States
'Illegible, inelegant, and communicating absolutely none of the spirit, nobility, athleticism or beauty of the Olympics.'
- Ryan Torres, Massachussets
'Pathetic.'
- Amy Murphy, Miami