Gap says it will keep classic logo | Hacker News Reader

Gap says it will keep classic logo

gapinc.com

63 pointsssclafani45 comments

I have a completely unfounded theory about the Gap. :)

Through the last fifteen years their pattern has been two to four great years followed by two disappointing years. They'll do well for several years with basic khakis, denim, t-shirts, polos, etc. Then they'll try to stretch into trendier, more daring fashions and have a couple poor years before going back to basics.

I get the feeling that the kind of people who go to work at Gap, Inc. love fashion and style and are sort-of bothered by the stodgy products they sell. They really want to be Gucci or Ralph Lauren, but their customer base won't let them. In the same way, I wonder if the stodgy logo chafed against their idea of a hip, fashionable company image.

"They really want to be Gucci or Ralph Lauren, but their customer base won't let them."

The second part matches my high school experience. As someone who grew up in Connecticut, I didn't even own a pair of blue jeans between 6th grade and college. And the first part definitely makes sense as well.

"They really want to be Gucci or Ralph Lauren"

Um, no. That's Banana Republic's job. Same company. Old Navy is the cheap stuff, BR is the high end, Gap is in the middle.

I mean that the buyers, designers, etc. that are attracted to a career at a stylish company like the Gap are, paradoxically, not particularly interested in selling the same old staples year in and year out.

Hmm... this is a separate issue altogether but what is up with the "Gap Inc." site? It has zero branding whatsoever... I'd have assumed it was a domain landing page if it wasn't for the link being posted here.

Yes, it looks like a spam/squatting site. In addition, it always turns me off when I see sites that, when accessed by http://www.gapinc.com, redirect to http://www.gapinc.com/public/index.shtml (or something similar).

Why?

The URL is for the computer, not you.

In that case, couldn't we just do away with domians and stick to IP addresses then? At least sans IP scarcity issues. :P

You only think that because of sites like this one. URLs are very certainly for people.

The bottom of gap.com has an "About Gap Inc" link that goes to the site, so I'm guessing it's legit.

Gap Inc. is the parent company for Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, and a few other brands. Its website is geared toward corporate information, rather than the brands Gap Inc. owns, which have their own retail sites.

There has yet to be a single item of collateral: a delivery truck, store signage, or even one miserable bag that’s showed up with the new logo.

Meanwhile we’re talking about GAP on Hacker News, it’s held a spot in the top 10 in Google Trends since it showed up http://www.google.com/trends, and they rallied a bunch of customers who remembered how much they like GAP just like it is.

The cynic in me says brilliant PR stunt.

I feel the same but I also can't help but wonder—what if would have totally backfired and people loved it?

Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

Err, not quite sure its a PR stunt. The people mocking, critiquing, and blogging about GAP's horrible logo probably aren't their customers. It got attention because the logo they chose was just plain awful and laughable. I doubt they wanted this to happen.

Weren't their customers. Isn't that the whole point?

Worst case they get lots of gap jeans purchased ironically.

To this day, there are people who believe that New Coke was a PR stunt. Often viewed as one of the biggest brand disasters in history, the New Coke quagmire actually had a great effect on Coke: It made people realize how much they loved the stuff. It's one of the reasons they're on top today.

I don't quite agree with the statement "There's no such thing as bad publicity." But I do feel that branding fortune favors the bold, even if they're doing something foolish like this silly logo.

I saw an interview with Coke's CEO at the time about new Coke. His comment was that nobody at the company was smart enough to "plan" the new Coke fiasco.

Because it was a novel gambit at the time. Now I'd be surprised if you could find an advertising student who couldn't explain how to execute something similar.

No, it was a marketing blunder followed up with some great marketing response. Gatorade recently did the same thing and are getting beat up heavily about it because they invested too heavily before finding out what their customers really were interested in.

My problem with that idea is that the design agency would have to have been in on it. I can't see them agreeing to put their reputation on the line without some kind of "it was all a stunt, we're brilliant after all" ending.

I don't think so - too much risk for it to be deliberate strategy. More likely is that it was an executive thought bubble that went wrong.

Questions:

- How much money was wasted?

- Did tons of newly printed tags on clothes need to be manually removed and retagged?

- Who was responsible for the creation of the new logo and who made the decision to use it?

- was this just a publicity stunt?

Have no doubt that by the time one of these rebrandings is announced many truckloads of stuff has been printed. The hippie in me absolutely weeps.

Wait - so after all that they are not going to milk this into some kind of contest? They are just going to give up and walk away?

"This wasn’t the right project at the right time for crowd sourcing" - what? Isn't that the whole point of this crazy stunt?

Most of the "crowd-sourced" reaction I heard was that they should keep their current logo.

If you look at the contestants, you'll see why: http://99designs.com/logo-design/contests/design-better-gap-...

The original logo's distinctive styling makes all of those look pale in comparison.

Most of the ones on the front page aren't the best (after skimming through for a while). I think it is difficult to pick a winner based on voting, but there are definitely some that are better than their original logo.

Edit: There are a few nice ones within the first ~50 of this: http://blog.iso50.com/logos/gap-redesign-contest/

It doesn't matter how the other logos look.

The Gap's brand recognition is so high that it would be absolutely idiotic to swap the logo with a new look.

I see one (shylion #4052, top row) that could work with a little lovin' but yeah, none of those compare in the slightest. Most of them look like people trolling for prize money -- I'm not familiar with the site but any place there is a promise of cash reward there will be vultures circling the carcass.

NONE of them? I assume that means you've reviewed the more than 4000 that were submitted? I hate to immediately jump on the defensive, but I was a little put-off by the statement. I've used the site for a logo design that I was quite happy with and I've also submitted a few designs that no one was happy with (and for good reason, I'm a terrible designer). So while I have little experience with it, I do think it's a good resource and shouldn't be denounced so quickly.

I've never owned a company and certainly have no real basis for this assumption, but still I assume that I would much rather have thousands of designers at my disposal willing to do iteration after iteration in order win a "prize" and some notoriety to do branding for my company than a single firm who I would feel like I was stuck with after any amount of investment.

Now while I will submit that something of this nature will certainly bring out those "trolling for prize money", I don't agree with the mild implication that the format of the site has nothing more to offer isn't a fair assessment.

Yes, these sites seem to offer a vastly better deal to customers than traditional contracts. But there's a catch: As a consequence, the deal they offer to designers is necessarily so much worse that the only ones participating are those who can't find work elsewhere, ie amateurs. I think the Gap contest perfectly demonstrates that this isn't the type of task where a "Mechanical Turk" approach works. I've looked at the top 200 rated entries, and there's hardly a passable one among them, let alone anything even remotely inspired.

They are pacifying everybody before pulling a MySpace and coming up with a logo that really expresses "creativity":

    GA   P

New Coke.

If it ain't broke don't fix it:

http://flowingdata.com/2009/08/13/pepsi-and-coca-cola-logo-d...

I always assumed that the logo they put on the website was a stunt to lead into a crowd-sourcing competition, but the crowd-sourcing part was real. It's got all that Web 2.0 goodness. The logo they showed with the box with the gradient could hardly have been worse, so it's hard to take seriously, but the crowd-sourcing idea feels like a "me-too" take on following in the footsteps of Skittles or Old Spice, trying to show they're living in the present.

I think they then saw backlash to the crowd-sourcing idea as well, and then realized it was safer to quit while they're ahead.

Gap are a strange company. I personally love their cut of jeans so always buy mine from them. I'm in the UK and until this year, they did not have an online store for the UK. I can't believe how long it has taken them to do this

This must have been a stunt.

I thought the same, but if it was a stunt would they go as far as replacing their logo on http://www.gap.com

There's no actual expense if the only change was to replace the logo on gap.com. Reads like "stunt" to me, too.

Link to logos?

thank god(s).

Logo #FAIL

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