You'd never get a bank choosing a logo this bad...

I looked on with horror today at the replacement for the rather nice London 2012 logo. I liked the old one - the Thames sweeping through the 2012. Classy.

We're good at logos and design in the UK. The old British Rail logo - still in use. The Tube map. The Finextra logo - a classic. Kidding. Banks of course all have logos - usually quite nifty ones even if they occasionally get carried away with the branding and make their HQ resemble their logo if viewed from space.

So - back to the Olympics and 400,000 quid later - what do we have? A mess. A disgrace. A self-indulgent, emperors new clothes style mess of complete marketing twoddle. A nation cringes with embarrassment - made a laughing stock again. Who on earth signed this off? The only encouraging thing about it is the spontaneous outpouring of anger from the populous on any web site with a comment facility. Check out the hilarious comments of the angry mobs here at The Register, The BBC and The Guardian among others!

You'd never get a bank choosing anything this bad? Would you? Feel free to put me right on this one by the way.

The only commercial outfit in the past to choose a logo quite this daft were BT and their prancing trumpet character - spookily enough a design also from Wolf Ollins who are responsible for the new 2012 "brand". I despair - while secretly hoping this gets "evolved" back into the old one and everyone involved hangs their heads in shame and promise not to do it again.