Gap Squared
Gap's new logo from modernist to possible clip art
This was THE hot topic of the weekend and I told myself I wasn’t going to post anything related to the new Gap logo. But I am. Gap is a very reputable brand and their branding and promotional always catches my eye. Their style is clean and very minimal, just the type of design I look for when I’m out our perusing a magazine. Each of their printed materials relies on typography to deliver a message, and for the most post, they do a good job at it. Helvetica is their typeface of choice and they use it on everything. I’m not complaining, afterall it is one of my favorite typefaces. Especially when they use large bold numbers, it’s eye catching.
But honestly, what were they thinking?
A small gradient blue square doesn’t cut it. First of all, modern and minimalistic design is based on cutting down the unnecessary parts of what makes design ineffective. So to use a a gradient contradicts their entire visual identity, including posters, ads and print material. What Gap has done is create a logo from their visual identity and not the other way around.
The new logo reduces Gap to an ordinary, almost generic brand. Got back to the old one Gap, it was much better.
I’m glad to see they’ve done an about-turn and gone back to the original logo after so much negative publicity.
The old logo is elegant, timeless and has large GAPs between the letters – it just seems to suit the brand.
The new one is so horrific (imagine that white background on a shop sign that hadn’t been cleaned for a couple of months – ugh) that part of me suspects the whole thing was done as a big publicity stunt… Surely a company that deals in such an aesthetically-sensitive trade as clothes retail would know better than that?
Well said, Joel. Something didn’t seem quite right and was a reason why I didn’t want to touch up on the subject in the first place. I mean, a gradient for their logo? Especially for a brand like Gap who is so design conscious, it didn’t seem right. It was so contradictory to a lifestyle, it was bound to receive such publicity. And in order for that logo design to be approved, it would’ve had to been run by so many people, someone would’ve pulled the plug on it.
After all the fuss, it was simply a marketing ploy executed correctly. Seriously, my girlfriend spent a significant amount over the weekend at Gap.