Everybody hates the new Gap logo! (Except for NewsFeed, but we don’t count.) Now the company is backpedaling, with a possibly-real, possibly-passive-aggressive announcement of a new crowd-sourcing project.
Comfortable middle-class retailer The Gap quietly changed its logo yesterday, switching from the iconic blue box that taught this country how to love khakis into a sparer Helvetica creation. NewsFeed personally does not mind Helvetica, and so this new logo brings to mind visions of a streamlined, technologically dominant future America where everyone wears white suits and cool glasses. Sure, it’s generic, but don’t you know that in the future everything looks alike?
However, everyone else can’t stand the thing. (Someone even made a Crap Logo Yourself generator.)
Now it appears the company has an additional card up their sleeves. As a post on the official Gap Facebook page explained:
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.
Unfortunately, there’s no pleasing some people. The page has filled with angry commenters, most of whom echo the sentiments of one Felix Sanchez:
You want a new logo? Quit asking for free designs (and I pity the designers who fell for this and sent serious submissions) and hire a professional designer/firm to create one for you. Your “crowdsourcing” ploy is nothing short of SPEC work, and completely disregards the contributions that designers have to business and culture.
Well, maybe Plan C will turn out better for the company. (via New York mag)
UPDATE: The new logo and the old one now have dueling Twitter accounts.
