And back to the beginning

An update on the ongoing Gap logo saga. Gap Inc. have released the following press release:

http://www.gapinc.com/public/Media/Press_Releases/med_pr_GapLogoStatement10112010.shtml

“Since we rolled out an updated version of our logo last week on our website, we’ve seen an outpouring of comments from customers and the online community in support of the iconic blue box logo.

“Last week, we moved to address the feedback and began exploring how we could tap into all of the passion. Ultimately, we’ve learned just how much energy there is around our brand. All roads were leading us back to the blue box, so we’ve made the decision not to use the new logo on gap.com any further.

“At Gap brand, our customers have always come first. We’ve been listening to and watching all of the comments this past week. We heard them say over and over again they are passionate about our blue box logo, and they want it back. So we’ve made the decision to do just that – we will bring it back across all channels.

“In the meantime, the website will go back to our iconic blue box logo and, for Holiday, we’ll turn our blue box red for our seasonal campaign.

“We’ve learned a lot in this process. And we are clear that we did not go about this in the right way. We recognize that we missed the opportunity to engage with the online community. This wasn’t the right project at the right time for crowd sourcing.

“There may be a time to evolve our logo, but if and when that time comes, we’ll handle it in a different way. “

I'm embarrassed to be a designer today.

A company has designed a new identity, it was signed off and made public. No one has to like it, but it was legitimate work.

We're supposed to embrace the new and be open minded as creatives, yet everyone jumps on the bandwagon and bashes the new logo because it's new and different.

It amazed me how conservative the design community has proved itself with this whole thing.

I'm also sad that a company would bow to public pressure so quickly. If a company signs off a new identity then that should mean they have the confidence to defend their decisions. The fact that gap have reneged on their choice after only a few days shows poor leadership.

Imagine is the london 2012 olympics hadn't stood firmly behind their logo. Public opinion was very divided but now everyone is used to it and it works well.

This design was never given a chance and as designers, without having seen the new gap logo work in context or even have a chance to live properly, we've already shot it down. This is a dangerous precedent to set.

I guess the only good thing that came out of this, is that AIGA persuaded gap not to try crowdsourcing, a practice that is even worse for confidence in professional design.

AIGA president Debbie Millman contacted Gap and made sure they knew the AIGA's position on spec work:

We did not…just send the anti-spec treatise. We would like to give them the opportunity to have a considered discussion as opposed a public one-sided bashing.

That being said, I have made my personal point of view very clear: I firmly believe that crowd-sourcing and spec work is about designers giving their work away for free. But it is also about an abuse of power. The ‘client’ has it all. The designer has none. Unless, of course, we say no.

If nothing else, this whole episode shows that the online community have the power to affect large corportations. These companies are starting to re-think the way they engage with their customers.

Gap - a timeline of a new logo

It's been 3 days since Gap unveiled a new logo on their website and the dust has started to settle. However, things are still confused and the press has been quick to pick up on the public reaction (read internet reaction) to the new logo. Here's how things played out:



Tuesday 5th October

As ever, first to react were design bloggers, forums and Tweeters. I first saw comments on the new logo in the evening on tuesday 5th October. The first parodies appeared the same evening. Cue pastiches of the new logo replacing 'Gap' with any other word ending -ap: Crap, Snap etc.





The logo was featured on yourlogomakesmebarf.com that same evening.





Wednesday 6th October

The next day everyone awoke to the new logo and the audience grew. Twtter was alight with comments and links to the previous night's blog entries.

A key blog entry has been on the iso50 site. They launched a logo redesign contest on wednesday which picked up momentum from its readership of designers. At time of writing there are a huge 238 entries.



Brand New reacted quickly along with other major branding blogs

.



As a response to all the negative reactions, someone set up a twitter account on 
behalf of the logo. It's written in his voice and is not the first anthropomorphic Twitter account for a logo, the iTunes10 logo having received its own in September.



The criticisms continued and then Gap broke their silence and posted this on their official Facebook account:



"Thanks for everyone’s input on the new logo! We’ve had the same logo for 20+ years, and this is just one of the things we’re changing. We know this logo created a lot of buzz and we’re thrilled to see passionate debates unfolding! So much so we’re asking you to share your designs. We love our version, but we’d like to see other ideas. Stay tuned for details in the next few days on this crowd sourcing project."

This is the point at which I think Gap lost quite a large amount of control. To confirm the new logo is one thing but to decide so quickly (1 day after launch) to create a crowd sourcing project seems a rather rash decision.



More mainstream sites picked up the news and it moved from being a design community story a more public one on sites like the Huffington Post and New York magazine

Not to feel left out the Old Gap logo then got its own Twitter account with some great tweets:

"Help…i've been taken hostage. Everything is dark and I don't know where I am."

Thursday 7th October

The next day reactions had built up momentum, with the previous day's blog posts and tweets being quickly spread.

All of this caused Gap North America's President, Marka Hansen to make a public statement on the Huffington Post, announcing that they will launch their crowd sourcing project in the next few days

Theories have been circulated that this whole exercise was a clever marketing exercise to bring media attention to Gap, involve the public and get them on side.



Friday 8th October

The story has been picked up by mainstream and print media, featuring on ABC's site, Fast Company, as well as lots of fashion media.



Brand New have published a great assessment of the story so far, including the anatomy public reaction to a identity launch (indignation, twitter accounts, logo contests):



It seems that with the advent of social media and such immediate criticism of new identities, launches must be handled very carefully, with great care to explain themselves in a wider context and involve the public.



If nothing else the backlash against rebrands of large consumer brands shows us that people feel passionately about their brands.



This type of reaction is nothing new, however it seems it's becoming more frequent, people like having their say and getting involved. What once was just a knee-jerk reaction, a chat around the watercooler, is spread around the world and redesigned within hours of launching.



The identity work is by Laird and Partners http://www.lairdandpartners.com/