The 2012 Olympic Mascots

[lupestripe]

They have just been unveiled and it's another disappointment I'm afraid. They are amorphous blobs of steel, which is highly ironic considering that we hardly have any steel industry left any more. Anyway, there is little exciting from a furry aspect - I was hoping for a cuddly lion myself - but I guess pushing the boundaries is the order of the day.

Wenlock and Mandeville are their names, which at least is quintessentially British I suppose. Apparently, they are set to feature in animated form so there could be a cute factor going on. They are also set to have their own Facebook and Twitter pages which would give them a stronger identity and they already have a back story so clearly the creators are trying to foster a strong sense of characterisation. I don't think this has been done to this extent before in this field of mascotting.

So perhaps they will grow on me like the 2012 Olympic logo has. I see parallels with Monsters Inc so perhaps it could work out well in the end. I guess we will wait and see.

news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympic_games/london_2012/8690467.stm

Comments

[kiwihunter8.livejournal.com]

I live in Atlanta, GA, and did during the Olympics then and when 'Whatizit' was revealed. I remember talking over the water cooler at how sad and pathetic it was. Wenlock and Mandeville don't seem nearly as bad to me, but being furry I would have prefered some kind of wildlife too.

[lastres0rt.livejournal.com]

The video really screams irony to me; they don't seem to get that the popular, time-tested mascots ARE freakin' animals (Mischa, etc.), not amorphous alien crap.

The only difference between London's Mascots and Atlanta's is that theirs are SHINY~ @w@. Also, I preferred Blaze (Atlanta's Paralympic Mascot), which thankfully wasn't cut from the same cloth as Izzy.

[megadog.livejournal.com]

What gets me is that some bunch of pink-shirted strategy-boutiquistes or cluster of policy-wonks have been paid a vast sum of taxpayer's money to focus-group this evident nonsense through their various ideas-infrastructures and off into a whole new intellectual space.

[sabotlours.livejournal.com]

*shudders* Just awful.

[rustyfox.livejournal.com]

At least they don't look like Lisa Simpson sucking off London.

That's about the only positive thing I can think of though.

[lastres0rt.livejournal.com]

Hey, they paid £400,000 to have someone draw Lisa Simpson sucking off London.

Porn costs money!

[rustyfox.livejournal.com]

Someone should have pointed them to youporn.com for nowt :P

I might have felt "inspired" by the logo that way too!

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Lisa Simpson sucking off London

Oh my, I never noticed that... but you're totally right. ^^

[rustyfox.livejournal.com]

Once you've seen that... you really can't see anything else!

(And to be honest, it's pretty much the only thing my brain can make sense of in that jagged mess)

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Agreed on both counts!

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

My views on these games are well known, so I will not bother airing them again.

[scritchwuff.livejournal.com]

LAWL!
What's not to like about CGI anthro butt plugs?

[schnee.livejournal.com]

"The children told us a number of things: they weren't that sold on furry animals and they actually wanted a story," Coe added.

And that's why you shouldn't let children design your characters.

(And what's with the whole "character and backstory" part, anyway? They're supposed to be mascots: draw attention to the games, not away from the games to themselves.)

[shep-shepherd.livejournal.com]

"And that's why you shouldn't let children design your characters."

The new mascot for my workplace (an anthropomorphic bowling ball covered in stars holding a bucket of popcorn - don't ask!) is a case in point. Luckily, it hasn't yet been turned into a costume yet.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

(an anthropomorphic bowling ball covered in stars holding a bucket of popcorn - don't ask!)

I'm trying, but I'm really finding it very hard not to ask now. o.o

[shep-shepherd.livejournal.com]

The consequence of a witless, menopausal 50-year-old secretary being allowed to choose the winning mascot design, I'm afraid.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Any pictures of the logo? :)

[shep-shepherd.livejournal.com]

For shame:

http://www.festivalleisure.co.uk/index.php

The bit with the stars is the logo.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Interesting; that site seems to reliably/reproducibly crash Firefox.

[keeganfox.livejournal.com]

The page works for me (Firefox 3.6.3) but I'm not seeing any characters, just a copy of the Las Vegas welcome sign.

[lastres0rt.livejournal.com]

See, THIS is what happens in any contest-type scenario. No matter who wins, you ultimately end up with an inferior design compared to a professional -- even if you were only willing to pay that professional the same money you would've spent on the contest.

[greyscar.livejournal.com]

AHHHHH kill them with fire!

[doco.livejournal.com]

The blue one looks like it's just soiled its pants. :)

[keeganfox.livejournal.com]

They've hired Kang and Kodos?

o.O

[shep-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Just when I'd gotten used to the logo, along come (Much?) Wenlock and (Stoke?) Mandeville. I think they are bloody atrocious.

[alexf0x.livejournal.com]

Same...

They look like some idiots first puked out attempt with Blender after finding the very old liquid metal effect.

God can the games advertising team do anything that looks convincingly good?

Oh and as for the story behind the character thing, didn't they try that shit with Izzy for the Atlanta Oylmpics? Oh wait they did... Sorry Seb Co the yanks go there first on that.

[lastres0rt.livejournal.com]

Yeah... hate to tell these guys, but story only works if they like the visual appeal first.

Found that one out the hard way with the webcomic -- You can't get someone to keep reading the story if they don't already like the rest of it enough to stay put.

[alexf0x.livejournal.com]

To make a visual story work you first need interesting characters, then a good story. These have neither, they are neither appealing and nor is the story interesting, it all very design by committee in other words bland boring and stupid. No kid, or adult is buying it.

I could even say that it's something of a self insult too to closely associate these two with the British steel industry*, something that has been in massive decline for decades. It just says "welcome to the UK, all we have is past glory, nostalgia and decline". Urk....

I am willing to bet that for a bottle of booze any furry artist could come up with a better mascot set, and a better back story for them.

*Thinking about it do we even have a steel industry now?

[marston.livejournal.com]

Disappointing. They're not terrible, just bland. They look really cheap and unprofessional too - that metallic texture render might have impressed people fifteen years ago but most home computers can produce better effects now.

Poor guys - I want to like them as characters but all I can see are amorphous blobs.

[alexf0x.livejournal.com]

Home computers could do that level of graphics 11 years ago. I recall seeing and getting excited by the test demo's for the SEGA Dreamcast which did the same render effect.

God the Dreamcast! Now that's saying something!

[rustyfox.livejournal.com]

Actually, having seen the BBC clip and just how abysmally poor previous mascots have been, I was beginning to warm to them. They are a bit different in a not such drastically naff way.

Then Lord Coe started talking patronising bullshit again.

Then I watched the official promotional video. What the hell? Is that an early pre-render or something? Either it looks like an animation, or it looks like a decent computer generated film, but it shouldn't look like neither. It's also meaningless tosh.

[tr-wolf.livejournal.com]

I really don't mind them. I can see what they've gone for though, away from the animal route to something more modern and futuristic and space like.