Thursday, March 10, 2011

Logos through the Ages, Part 3

"Fall into the Gap!"

That's the most recent Gap slogan I can remember, and I think that was a WHILE ago.  To the right was their new logo for a week back in October.  It's not a bad logo, but it's SO different than the look of their older logo.


It's normal for companies to change their logo every so often, but it can often be a crap shoot if people will actually like it.  I don't think people would have gone to Gap less because of the logo, and now, five months later, people have moved on to other things.  They would have been fine eventually.  They should have still done the blue square in the upper-right corner, but used the old font, in black, but with a bold type.

Consumers brains can only process so many changes to a logo without it seeming too weird.  You shouldn't change more than two - usually one at a time is better - elements in a single logo switch.  It's a slow progression, but Gap would have avoided the backlash if they hadn't made FOUR changes in one logo:
1. Different font
2. Not all capitalized
3. Text color from white to black
4. Blue background flying away

To make this a truly safe switch, they should have experimented with changing different aspects of the image.  They probably did, but, for some reason, decided to do it all at once.  My bet is that someone wanted to make their mark on an iconic brand by throwing caution to the wind and switching up EVERYTHING.

The Take-away
Gap shouldn't have caved to pressure from consumers!  People would have gotten past it, but because they gave in to public outcry, they'll have to get any future logo changes approved by the public every time now in order to avoid an even BIGGER protest!

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