Olympic mascots become self-ware and go on a killing spree around London!

Wenlock - Olympic mascot

Ha ha, only kidding they do look like they were sent back from the future by Skynet though ;)

So finally the London 2012 Olympic Mascots by have been revealed. As you would expect from the 2012 committee, they are not really what we expected! Far from cute & cuddly they are cold & hard, more like a Henry Moore sculpture than a kids toy.

Designed by London agency iris, I read that they only cost “a few thousand pounds”, I think they probably cost a bit more than that! Probably just trying to play it down after the £400,000 logo fiasco.

Mandeville - Olympic mascot

I feel for it’s designer though, whatever you create you’re going to get people ripping the shit out of it (myself included, sorry..) It’s an impossible brief, design by committee jobs always are.. I actually like it quite a lot, everything from the neck down looks awesome, great proportions, clean lines, sweet as in my book. Problem is though, why oh why that eye Olympic Committee?

You can tell by the descriptions on iris’ design boards, that the eye was supposed to be a camera lens, but at some point they decided to stick a cartoon eye on there which looks totally at odds to the rest of the angular design. Pixar have already shown with characters like WALL•E, or even their original anglepoise lamp short, that with the limitations of something ‘less human’, you can get a lot more unique character out of it. Feels like it was almost good, but they fucked it up at the last hurdle..

I actually took part in the original pitch too!

My olympic mascot pitch

Only fair to put my own work up for comparison/criticism. My idea was unsurprisingly the sock monster route. Rather than selling preformed shiny toys to the kiddies, I wanted to make ‘kits’ which were essentially a pair of long sport socks with instructions of how to make your own mascot from scratch! Thought it would be nice thing to do in school as a crafty lesson, give them chance to be creative and add a bit personal flair to their own mascot. The agency I was working for poo poo’d it because it wasn’t ‘commercially viable’, said the committee would never go for it as they needed to pay for the Olympics through some mass-produced piece of Chinese plastic..

15 thoughts on “Olympic mascots become self-ware and go on a killing spree around London!

  1. I make and sell Sock Monkeys, I have various ones on my page on Facebook, search Gem’s Monkey Business :)

    I love them and think they are a great gift for any ages!

  2. first time on the site, love it!

    these sock puppets are kickass, i want one, and im a 23 year old male college student in the US. These remind me of childhood and look hilarious, lol, you should still make the kits anyway!

  3. hi i am a student at stokesley school and i am just wondering if i could use the 2 pictures of mandeville and wenlock for a powerpoint im making for my gcse?
    thanks

  4. I wonder if the orange olympic mascot as been added to the accidental penis list? if not perhaps it should be……………..

  5. LOVE your idea!!!!!! It really depresses me that these decision makers prefer some horrible plastic crap over a creative, engaging and fun idea like yours…. shame on them.

  6. Love the sock-puppet idea ..
    completely agree with the mascot monsters ..
    guess it ties in nicely with the amount of cctv surveilance in london though .. “smile – your on camera -‘banksy’ “

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  8. I love your sock puppets! I think that everyone loved the Vancouver mascots, didn’t they? I certainly fell in love with them when I travelled to Vancouver last year. The Sydney masctos were not endearing – they were upstaged by Fatso the Wombat.

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  10. I definitely prefer your sock puppets! They’re adorable! Whereas the mascots the Olympics team chose kind of creep me out! They’re so awfully shiny too, yuck!

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