Now that Gap has announced they’re abandoning their new logo, as well as passing on crowdsourcing for further development, perhaps we should take a look for lessons learned
After an Internet backlash about the new Gap logo late last week, the clothing retailer has now backed down, returning to their original mark, as well as nixing any plans to crowdsource a new design. According to company officials:
“We’ve learned a lot in this process. And we are clear that we did not go about this in the right way. We recognise 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.”
So, as designers, what can we learn? Several things I think. The first is this silly notion that ‘logos are dead.’ Obviously, logos still resonate with a large percentage of the market, consumers and customers. The second is that designers, when they work together, can exact change in their industry. Remember that when you want to gripe about ‘yet another spec work’ article. According to Ad Age, 80% of Gap customers surveyed, had no idea about the online controversy swirling about the ‘new’ Gap logo, so it’s a safe bet that a lot of the dust-up involved designers. It would therefore seem, despite all the spec work talking points, designers as a whole are still very much opposed to crowdsourcing and design contests.
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