Reiss's submission to a UK-wide competition for young designers was based on a set of coloured drawing pencils in side the London 2012 logo shape – and not much more. In a digital age, for a socially-networked, Tweeted-out, computer literate generation, he chose coloured pencils!
Sometimes less is more – and this is one of those times. The humble pencil in a range of well chosen colours continues to represent communication, creativity and learning – and in its most universal and resilient form. It is elegant and simple.
As part of his prize, Reiss won a couple of month's internship with Futurebrand, one of the world leaders in marketing and logo design. The idea was that their experts would work with Reiss to sharpen up the rough ideas of a college student into something that would win approval from the International Olympic and Paralympic Committees, the Patent Office, and most importantly, the schools and colleges of the UK.
When I look at the finished logo and compare it with what Reiss submitted to us some months back, it's largely the same, and the team from Futurebrand told me that Reiss did pretty much all the work anyhow.
Reiss, like his idea, is humble. He was dreading us asking him to make a speech in front of the 300 fellow students and the assembled media at Canberbury College. Whilst he may be a young man of few words, his creative work speaks powerfully and effectively.
His new logo will now start to appear at schools and colleges around the UK. It will mark out those who show real commitment to the Olympic and Parlaympic Values in all that they do – both in the curriculum and in the wider aspects of school life.
It was another bit of history being made in Canterbury. The first Education mark of its kind for an Olympic or Paralympic Games, the first 'infill' London 2012 logo designed by a public competition, and the first college to join the new Get Set Network.
Joining me to celebrate Reiss and Canterbury College was Olympian decathlete and all round nice guy, Dean Macey. Dean knows a thing or two about Olympic and Paralympic values. He explained to the students that as a youngster he could easily have gone off the rails.
'I wasn't so hot at the academic stuff,' he said, 'and I was a bit of a lad. If it hadn't been for athletics it could all have gone wrong for me.'
He went on to talk about the years between Olymjpic Games in Sydney and Athens when perpetual injury kept him away from the sport he loved. There were times when it all looked hopeless. 'But those Olympic values gave me a structure to life and a discipline and determination to come back,' he explained.
And come back he did to compete for Team GB at the highest level and win the admiration of millions, and the rapturous adulation of a hall packed with teenagers in Canterbury. Dean and Reiss got on well, and going forward they both have an important role in sharing the London 2012 gold dust as widely as possible in the UK's schools and colleges.
