We admire the courage of Creative Review and Design Observer contributor Adrian Shaughnessy, we really do. He has done something we wouldn’t do, not even if our blogging careers depended on it. He has visited a dangerous realm known worldwide for its proliferation of controversy, protest and seizures: He has visited the offices of Wolff Olins. Don’t worry, he was screened for epilepsy ahead of time.

He was even so bold as to ask them about the deadly Olympic logo, risking life, limb and permanent damage to his eyesight when speaking with the creators of the biggest design scandal of 2007, Brian Boylan and Patrick Cox. And even though Shaughnessy had called it (pick one) “ghastly, dreadful, impoverished, bad, unmemorable, trying to be trendy,” they were nice!

Both Boylin and Cox stand by the 2012 work. I expected them to be evasive, constrained by gagging orders from the London 2012 committee, but the opposite was true. They discussed it freely and with quiet enthusiasm, which made me realise that Lord Coe and his team committed an Olympic-sized error by not allowing Wolff Olins to defend their work. Their considered response would have deflected some of the media criticism.

To our amazement, Wolff Olins has done plenty of work that we hadn’t previously recognized them for, and we noticed some common themes. So without delay, a look back at the response to their other big clients:

London 2012 Olympics: Controversy, protest, seizures.
(RED): Controversy, protest.
NYC logo: Controversy, protest.

The only one that doesn’t fit the mold?

New Museum: Widespread praise (finally).

During the last ten days, the finalists for some of Wallpaper*’s Design Awards were posted so readers could muse over the potential decisions and lose sleep over the suspense (Would Kit Kemp‘s Haymarket trump Philippe Starck‘s Fasano Rio de Janeiro? Don’t make us even consider it!). As of January 12, the winners were announced with a party in London (soiree coverage here) and nice little video bumpers by Mainframe.

The list of judges is short but very sweet—André Balazs, Patricia Urquiola, Tadao Ando, Wong Kar-wai, Donatella Versace, Langlands & Bell—but the the list of winners is long—very, very long. So we culled the highlights for you:

· Straw-man Tokujin Yoshioka continues his winning streak as best furniture designer, after being named designer of the year for Design Miami.

· Los Angeles is the best design city, booya! (And using Thom Mayne‘s CalTrans building to represent LA in the voting didn’t even hurt us.)

· The New Museum by SANAA, which seems to be on the top of everyone’s list at the moment, is the best new public building.

· Yves Béhar‘s Little Green Computer That Could is named most life-enhancing device.

· A Richard Prince-Marc Jacobs collaboration for LV gets best bag.

· Sir Paul Smith earns his stripes for best collaborator.

· Arik Levy‘s Cubic Meter shelving system for Kenny Schachter bests what we can only imagine is a very competitive category: modular furniture; Twist by Carlo Colombo for Arflex takes shelving.

· Paper Alphabet by Sonya Dyakova is best typeface; best stationery is by Lucienne Roberts for none other than Tony Blair. We’ll leave it to the UK’s Creative Review for commentary on both of those.