The Olympic mascot will grace countless advertisements, publications, websites, knick-knacks and stuffed toys and will generate much debate among those who love it and those who hate it.

But someone has to design it first and the organizers of the Vancouver Winter Olympics put out a request for proposals Thursday.

``The Vancouver 2010 Winter Games mascots will be among the most recognizable and colourful personalities of Canada's Games and will embody our nation's culture and values,'' said John Furlong, the Games' CEO.

The request for proposals is open to a qualified professional or company anywhere in the world specializing in illustration, animation, graphic design or fine arts.

Whoever is chosen ``must be able to interpret the Vancouver 2010 story and brand into mascots that give a face and personality to the Games,'' said the information accompanying the request for proposal at www.vancouver2010.com/mascot.

Proposals will be accepted from Thursday through Nov. 1.

Anyone can contribute ideas via the 2010 website for what the mascot should be.

``Each and every Canadian will have an opinion on this mascot once it is produced, so we want people to start thinking about it,'' Furlong said.

The first mascot was Schuss, a smiling squiggle riding a pair of skis, which represented the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France.

Past mascots include the black beaver named Amik, who represented the Montreal 1976 Games.

Amik is pretty plain _ boring almost _ compared with some of the others: the blue, orange and green dachshund Waldi for the Munich 1972 Games and the skating Roni raccoon for the 1980 Lake Placid Games.

Then there are the mascots that are hard to classify, such as the marshmallow-shaped duo Neve and Glitz who represented this year's Winter Games in Turin and the Picasso-esque pair with Fred Flintstone feet who represented the Athens Summer Games in 2004.