The Protea is King.

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The logo depicts the city's defining icon, Table Mountain, under the African sun and with the waters of Table Bay beneath.

It will be used in conjunction with the official emblem, to form a composite logo. [...] the main aim was to create a unique identity that captures the design essence of the official emblem. It had to have a harmonious design relationship with the official logo in order to generate maximum brand impact.

Nice, as simple as that! Well, I was hoping for a penguin playing one bounce, but I suppose the mountain will do. ;) Any guesses for the other host city logos?

More here: City unveils 2010 host city logo

Interesting to see that they've used the logo that I reproduced (in my original post below) throughout their document, although when they specifically mention the Official Emblem (Section 2), then they use the Wikipedia/widely distributed version. Weird.

Here's a large version of the logo that I pulled off the PDF, with the nice gradients and drop shadows.

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When I see the 2010 FIFA World Cup logo online, which is fairly regularly, I'm curious why it's always the version that can be found on Wikipedia, which is unfortunately also the version on which the multitude of criticisms were based when the logo was unveiled last year. Wikipedia list the image with FIFA.com as the source, which I'd be willing to dispute, but you never know.

Is this poor brand management on FIFA's part?

They'd want to protect the identity of the World Cup, obviously - but given the persistent use of this version, and the unofficial vector file in the wild (which if I'm not mistaken, is mostly incorrect), are they not doing more harm by not providing a replacement or making the official version available? Hackers Hawkers will always find a way, so that can't be stopping them?

Take a look at this logo that FIFA are using on their website - notice the colours, gradients in particular, bevel on the outer green swish, etc. For comparative purposes, I roughly attempted to reproduce it using the vector EPS as a base: here's the result. Huge difference.

Switch Design could provide some insight (hey! you guys reading this?). After browsing through their impressive portfolio, I discovered they're also responsible for designing the familiar CI's of Ceres, Clover, Juicy Lucy, SAB, SABC and Steers, to name a few.

Here's another discovery I made, to further put things into perspective. The two logos on the right contained FIFA copyrights dated 2006 and 2002.

Interesting, né.

The Parliament of South Africa unveiled a new emblem yesterday. Via IOL:

In the symbolic form of a protea and drum topped by the sun, the new emblem centres around four key elements - the constitution, parliament, the people, and South Africa.

Very nice, although the outer people/protea leaves are a little strange-looking. I especially like that the style is consistent with our National Coat of Arms.

In the spirit of participatory democracy, parliament called on South Africans [article dates back to 2000, here's another dated last year] to submit a design for a new emblem embodying parliament's vision, mission and values.

Twenty entrants were chosen to represent all South Africans at a design workshop, during which the new emblem was designed.

More via IOL:

Parliament's secretary, Zingile Dingani, said the entire process of designing and rebranding, including new stationery, had cost R9-million - R7-million less than originally budgeted.

Read more about the new emblem over at the long overdue new-look Parliament website.

And more here:

• Last apartheid-era national symbol changed (IOL)
• Switch to roll out new Parliament emblem (BizCommunity)
• Local designers honoured in Parliament (BizCommunity)
• Joburg pair helps design state emblem (joburg.org.za)
• Local Artists Honoured in Parliament (capetown.gov.za)

UPDATE: IOL are running a poll, asking "What do you think of parliament's new emblem?". Currently, 62% of the participants have voted "Why did they change it?". Clearly none of them were familiar with the old emblem (which dates back to 1910 and still represents the old four provinces) and feel this is just another waste of money and resources.

The National Colours Regulations recognise the King Protea as the National Symbol for sport in South Africa and, in rugby's case, the combination of the King Protea and the Springbok.

UPDATE: Marketingweb have posted an article about superstitious fans who believe the Springbok in the logo is leaping in the wrong direction: read Leaping to conclusions