Smurf and Idiot - our British 2012 Olympic Mascots

These guys seriously aren't our British Olympic Mascots, right?

Can anybody remember the name of the 2012 British Olympic Mascots? Was it Wendy and Mambot? Or Smurf and Idiot? We can't remember either. We're too distracted by the fact they resemble a couple of Japanese mobile phones. Frankly, they're ridiculous, irrelevant, overtly childish and PC in design (how boring). Only SUPERSWEET is allowed to be childish, and that's because we're not spearheading the British Olympics. Perhaps we should....

Only ONE of the many variations sports the British Flag. We mention this because the others look absolutely pointless without it, with nothing for adults to relate to. In the words of Stephen Bayley the prominent design critic:

“What is it about these Games which seems to drive the organisers into the embrace of this kind of patronising, cretinous infantilism? Why can’t we have something that makes us sing with pride, instead of these appalling computerised Smurfs for the iPhone generation?"

On behalf of all the disgruntled UK citizens, SUPERSWEET wrote a complaints letter to IRIS, the design agency responsible. We didn't expect a response, let alone a lovingly detailed one like this:

Thank you for your email, we are very interested in everyone's point of view and its been great receiving all of the emails we have today, with the vast majority being hugely positive I have to add. We are immensely proud and attribute this feeling to the massive amount of support and emails praising the creativity and innovation of the mascots and the overwhelming response that most people are very much behind the two little fellas.

It is hard for me to know what you have seen and heard of the mascots but would suggest that you take a look at the below link, where you will see just such symbols of British pride that you mention. There are many variations of Wenlock and Mandeville to be launched at a later date but you can see a few variants in advance here...

http://www.ourlondon2012.com/mascots/

When answering this brief we thought why have just one mascot when you can have millions and have created an extraordinary character that can morph to reflect many personalities. They are the most dynamic, exciting and cool mascots ever designed for an Olympic Games and I am pretty sure you will grow to think so to. There is a fantastic film that really brings to life the mascots and shows you the back story and how they came to be, which might help to change your perception of them...

http://www.london2012.com/mascots

In response to your quote from Stephen Bayley, you might want to hear what Grant Hunter, iris Creative Director for iris London said on Radio 5 live this morning, it response to just that quote, which I have attached.

These mascots have been created for a digital age, to reflect the modern, innovative and forward thinking world we live in and provide an icon that yes, children first and foremost but that adults would also gravitate towards. The time had come to move on from fluffy, animal characters, which I would expect to be far more of a ridicule for an adult then a slick, sophisticated and stylised mascot, such as Wenlock and Mandeville.

Hopefully some of the above has helped to change your mind, we have strived to create a mascot that everyone believes in and feels proud of."

Perhaps the Lion and the Unicorn could have been our mascots, since they are symbols of the United Kingdom. These could easily have been designed as both fun and sleek and RELEVANT to adults and children. [Was it so obvious that your designers overlooked this? And no, THEY wouldn't have been ridiculous]

The bodywork could have reflected digital progression, and many variations could have been produced, just as with Wendy and Smurfbot.

In the words of SUPERSWEET music ed Gemma Dempster, "They still look stupid."

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