The Gap's New Logo

This past Monday, without a lot of fanfare, we introduced a new logo on our gap.com site, and I wanted to take this opportunity to explain our thinking behind this decision.

I've been president at Gap brand for the past three years, and I've been living and breathing the changes we've been making on our journey to make Gap more relevant to our customers.

You've seen this evolution through many of our products, such as the 1969 premium denim and the new black pants, and more modern stores in many locations.

The natural step for us on this journey is to see how our logo - one that we've had for more than 20 years - should evolve. Our brand and our clothes are changing and rethinking our logo is part of aligning with that.

We want our customers to take notice of Gap and see what it stands for today.

We chose this design as it's more contemporary and current. It honors our heritage through the blue box while still taking it forward.

Now, given the passionate outpouring from customers that followed, we've decided to engage in the dialogue, take their feedback on board and work together as we move ahead and evolve to the next phase of Gap.

From this online dialogue, it's clear that Gap still has a close connection to our customers, so tapping into this energy is right. We've posted a message on the Gap Facebook Page that says we plan to ask people to share their designs with us as well. We welcome the participation we've seen so far.

We'll explain specifics on how everyone can share designs in a few days.

Thank you to everyone who has already shared feedback. I'm excited about continuing the conversation and believe passionately in where we're taking our brand.

 

Comments

[Tb732]

11:39 AM on 11/02/2010

GAP needs to get back to it's roots, it's logo is a testimony to it's glory days. This was a move in exactly the wrong direction for GAP and demonstrates the disconnect between executives and their company's audience/customers. Major fail.

[Scout44]

10:15 AM on 10/21/2010

I'm a graphics designer who recently tried wearing a new sweater to work. Unfortunately it didn't work out so well. To put it lightly, my coworkers hated it. So I was wondering if Gap could send me some free sweaters to look at. If I like them, I might even wear them to work. But don't worry, I'll only wear the ones I like. I may not chose your sweaters though because I'm also accepting sweaters from random people who knit on the weekend. I figured I should cover all the bases. Hopefully I will be looking fashionable in no time.

It makes just as much sense to ask for a freely designed logo.

[XPLSV]

10:52 AM on 10/19/2010

"We want our customers to take notice of Gap and see what it stands for today." Yes we noticed, for all the wrong reasons. I'm not opposed to companies refreshing their brand every so many years, but damn, this is beyond bad. Looks like the brand for a Microsoft product, circa 1995. If you're going to take that rebrand step, consult with professionals in the field. Don't fall for this crowdsourcing trend that only cheapens your brand. Sure, you'll get a gazillion designs for the price of one, more bang for your buck right? Wrong. In the end you'll have just that, a cheap logo that looks cheap. You can't just design a logo without first doing some market research. And for a company like GAP, whose brand is well established, this should have been handled better. I can only think that this is some sort of marketing ploy to get attention through shock value. But then again, Pepsi, Xerox and AOL introduced equally horrible brands and stuck with them. Oh wait, what? This just in: GAP changes ugly duckling logo back to original. Guess they learned a few things from Tropicana.

[Sachin Ghodke]

10:41 AM on 10/13/2010

When you say "We chose this design as it's more contemporary and current. It honors our heritage through the blue box while still taking it forward." can you explain to me how using an over-used font through the many years, does it amount to being contemporary and current? The only value it imparts is familiarity and commonplace. Strong bold traditional identity was replaced by common one. This was really not needed. If GAP was changing to more "contemporary and current" positioning of the brand then it should have been more innovative, rather than creative. I found myself disliking the new logo but if you do notice, it had already been effective in terms of the new blue square, now that it has become so famous. For example, link any word to the square and people now will know its GAP. This is probably, if not the case, the most ingenious way to popularize the branding with super impact. Negative but it worked. I know for sure, no one is going to forget the new logo, no matter how hard they try. Smart gimmick? Should I say? Probably the old brand is so strongly implanted in people's mind with its classic style, it was kind of a culture shock when a simple, Helvetica, came as a new one, and I sincerely hope it is not Arial.

[Christopher Ehnot]

12:06 AM on 10/13/2010

I enjoy your brand, but I believe that returning to your former logo was a smart marketing decision. Avenir, Univers, Frutiger, Scala, or even Akzidenz-Grotesk offer fresh, yet elegant font families that work well with the GAP brand and marketing decisions over the last decade. Each of these typefaces would reversed out of a blue box and be legible from a great distance.

[Eva fate]

02:57 PM on 10/12/2010

i don't like it. my bf thinks it's boring. to me, it looks like something from a corporate powerpoint presentation. i think there was a theme in office 2007 that did that to words.
the old logo was better. more classic, and it had an iconic feel.

[Stephen J]

01:56 PM on 10/12/2010

How to create the new Gap logo in less than one minute... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b47Rt8MMyI

[k lau]

01:32 PM on 10/12/2010

The new typeface feels very American Apparel. And that blue box up in the corner is an ode to a uni-dimensional MSN/MS Windows.

[mbedda]

11:16 AM on 10/12/2010

At least the old one is back now, i'm glad they heard people's comments.

[trueart]

09:56 AM on 10/12/2010

So Gap has a lame logo created by a "prestigious agency", (and probably for an obscene amount of money) who seemingly does no real research with the customer. Then Gap adds insult to injury by asking their customers to design their logo?! Somebody needs to be replaced because they clearly have no experience with branding. Way to go, agency and Gap, on devaluing the design industry too!

[JoshuaLPeterson]

05:35 PM on 10/20/2010

"on devaluing the design industry too", ...agree.

[LMarF]

09:09 AM on 10/12/2010

This is just horrible! Were they planning on making hoodies with that logo on the front? It would look like you were advertizing for a lame software company. GAP needs to go back to basics. Something happened around 2002. Its clothing became cheap looking and no longer had the classic look that people expected. My wardrobe used to be about 70% GAP, now it's 5%. I go to The Limited now for my basics.

[BadBadKitten]

04:35 PM on 10/11/2010

Pretty simple logo.

[tarangiresun]

09:39 AM on 10/10/2010

Garnering media and consumer attention for any brand is ideal, although not ideal if the reaction of the general media and consumer is not so favorable. To me it reads inability to effectively inspire change, which is reflective of Gap’s overall treatment of its employees.
Any of the designs on this blogger’s website resonate change? http://blog.iso50.com/2010/10/06/gap-redesign-contest/. Lots of fresh ideas and talent out there yet Gap’s inability to move beyond bureaucracy and the muddling of a lot of fingers in one pot (how many higher ups were caught up in this fiasco?) prevents them from effectively moving toward inspiration and true change.

It’s sad. Gap promotes this ‘you be you’ ‘fashion your future’ drive your career attitude, except, if you are on the bottom end of the totem pole. For a once avid Gap consumer I haven’t stepped foot in to one store since they laid me off in 2008. Consumer devotion is something not to take for granted. We can shop elsewhere for the better.

I work for the founder and CEO of a technology public relations, internet marketing, branding firm. She had one look at this new logo and commented “It’s boring, but it would compel me to click on the page, on the escape button.” Clicks on web pages are… ehhhm…supposed to be a good thing!
As Meryl Streep playing Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada so eloquently said “That’s all.”

[Dmartelo]

12:54 AM on 10/10/2010

the problem is that logo and slogan driven branding is becoming a curse... look around at all the redone logos and see how eventually they faded and sank with the companies... when a name is bad there is no way it will survive with logo or some carzy meaningless make overs....

[MIVOTE]

10:58 PM on 10/09/2010

I wouldn't have paid anyone for that logo...