Where there's a will

The Olympic supporter rules (or in their words, guidelines) of the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) are tough. So great creativity was required to get around them.

London design firm, Rizon, has achieved it. It has also proven that big ideas and simple ideas tend to be synonymous.

According to the LOCOG’s marketing guidelines for the London Olympics, only official partners have the 'exclusive right to exploit their association with the event’.

Rizon's managing director, Dave Collins, had a different viewpoint. “Working in the field of licensing and merchandising, the draconian way LOCOG has enforced the brand rules around small and medium enterprises wanting to show their support of the game has incensed us,” he stated. “Total control for sponsors is not the Olympic spirit and certainly not in the spirit of British fair play.”

Rizon's collection of unofficial supporter of the London Olympics posters was made available to business so that they could sidestep the marketing rules that would otherwise disallow them from promoting their involvement in the Olympics. As Dave Collins noted, LOCOG could have generated revenue by creating a discrete official program called the ‘official supporters program’. For a small fee businesses would have been able to download a pack of approved marketing materials allowing them to demonstrate their support for the games. He and his creative director, Tamara Dixon, did that – unofficially - themselves.