Putting Out the Flames

The Olympic committee has ordered Chicago to remove the symbol of a torch from its proposed logo for the 2016 Olympics due to a violation with the Olympic's rules regarding use of Olympic-related imagery. Apparently it is against the rules to use any Olympic symbols in the logo. Isn't that interesting? It's too bad because I really did like the logo and thought it represented the city of Chicago well. What a shame.

VSA Partners designed the logo and also carried the same style across all of its graphics for the Olympics. Actually I'm surprised that a well-known firm such as VSA would miss something so important as abiding by the rules of the Olympic committee. If they had done their homework they would have avoided such a big blunder. 

Just think how much effort was lost designing the logo and the cost of materials that have already been printed with it. Not only that, but the amount of exposure the logo has already received and the emotional connection that's been established. 

Of all the projects to screw up on this is certainly not the one. With the Olympics being such a high profile event, this costly mistake will certainly be a blow to VSA's reputation. This is a good example to all designers that doing your research thoroughly is necessary.