Just in case any of us needed further proof that the Internet is a terrible place to make a mistake, Gap has performed a public service.
By introducing a new logo of questionable quality (and I’m being kind), they started a fire that was fueled by the Internet’s lust for scandal. Within a day, the company was attacked by a coalition of customers, designers and journalists — and was left looking confused and misguided.
Some would argue that the old logo was a classic, and that the company has far bigger problems to tackle than a logo redesign. I’m not one of them. Gap is in a tough business that’s all about design, and refreshing the logo is one way to instill new spirit companywide. Many of world’s greatest brands have successfully evolved their logos for similar reasons.
Then again, they do so by moving to a logo that isn’t crap.
Ad Age said the new logo looked like “something a child created using a clip-art gallery.” Design blog Brand New says it looks “as if it were done in Microsoft Word.” The greater design community spoke loudly and insultingly. The ISO50 blog went so far as to create a Gap redesign contest. (Many entries are significantly better than Gap’s choice.)
One can’t help but wonder what the mood is like inside Laird & Partners, the firm that actually created Gap’s new logo. Are they shocked at the rejection of their masterpiece? Or blaming each other for buckling to the client’s demands?
A bad logo is bad enough. But then Gap’s president, Marka Hansen, basically asked for a do-over — just two days into the firestorm. According to her, this “online dialogue” (read: brutal public beating) makes it clear that Gap “still has a close connection to our customers, so tapping into this energy is right.” Gap will now ask customers to share their designs.
Gap’s Facebook post is as chirpy as it gets. “We love our version, but we’d like to see other ideas.”
An earlier draft of that post might have read, “Wow, what a screw-up. Let’s see a few thousand ideas for free, and bill this as a breakthrough social media experiment.”
Indeed, some have theorized that this whole mess was actually part of a brilliant plan, that the buzz Gap ultimately gets from this adventure will greatly outweigh any negatives today.
Personally, I don’t believe in conspiracy theories. 99 times out of 100, things are exactly what they appear to be. Hard to imagine any intelligent group willing to humiliate itself in this way, especially when no one can predict know how it will end.
What we have here is a good idea (“let’s evolve our logo”) followed by a bad idea (Exhibit A, above). Now the PR people go to work. This is a cleanup job, not an act of brilliance.
No word from Gap yet on how the new crowd-sourcing logo effort will be organized. But watch closely, because this may be your shot at glory. With these guys, all it will take is one good idea and Microsoft Word.
Tags: gap logo, ken segall
