Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has made light of the controversy surrounding the 2012 Olympic logo and said politicians were not employed to make artistic decisions.

The bold, jagged £400,000 brand which is a modern take on the Olympic colours took a year's research, including consumer testing.

Organisers have hailed it as dynamic and vibrant, but other people have said it resembles a "toileting monkey" or a "broken swastika".

Speaking at a press conference at London's City Hall, Mr Livingstone was asked whether he liked the logo or not.

He joked: "Anything that doesn't have a huge picture of me in it I think falls short of potential."

He added: "These are matters of individual taste. I'm fine with it."

The Mayor said he was never going to get into a "sub orgasmic ecstasy" over any logo.

He said the look of the logo was not a decision for the Mayor, adding: "These are artistic choices."

Mr Livingstone said he was not going to start giving advice to people "who have got a lifetime of activity in that area".

He said the views of young people on the Olympics would be heard in the weeks to come.

By 2012 it would be "a different world" he said, with people accessing the Games through computers and headsets.

Whether people liked or disliked the logo, it was not the end of the world, he said.

"One thing I recognise is we don't employ politicians to make artistic decisions," he said.

He cited the idea of politicians deciding what should go into the Millennium Dome as a "classic example".

If it had been left up to him, there would have been the word "London" and five rings, each with a picture of himself inside, he said.

The public's criticism of the new logo continued on Tuesday with thousands of people already signing up to an online petition calling for it to be scrapped.

After just one day, the Change The London 2012 Logo petition already has more than 19,000 signatures.

Dr Peter Donovan, from Richmond, said he was "absolutely gutted" about the logo because he had been so proud of London winning the Olympics.

On signing the petition calling for it to be scrapped, he wrote: "I am embarrassed by this logo and believe an immediate rethink is required.

"It resembles a swastika and looks like graffiti - two things London is not about and should not aspire to."

Peter Michell from Ipswich wrote: "Look at it closely, it looks like some sort of comical sex act between The Simpsons."

Almost a hundred people have also joined a group on the social networking site Facebook entitled 'I know a monkey that can create a better logo'.