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• Site of the Week: 99designs and the Gap Logo

  By Gayatri Bhalla

  Posted on October 11, 2010 at 10:39 am

  

  Last week, Gap Inc. rolled out a re-designed logo. Judging from what we see and hear in the blogosphere, in the hallways, and on the street, the public is NOT a fan. Unlike the YMCA, Gap has not issued a press release announcing the new logo nor discussed the rationale for the change. The company’s brand tagline is “iconic American style”, and there are many who would argue that their old logo was, in fact, an icon of American style – so why go changing it?

  Gap’s logo re-design prompted our site of the week…

  Website: 99designs.com

  Lessons to be learned from this site:
  Gap’s logo redesign illustrates the challenges of re-branding: how does one do the delicate dance of adjusting for marketplace shifts, breathing new life into a brand (be it through evolution or a merger), and re-designing a visual identity while not alienating the brand that created you? 99designs challenged site visitors to showcase how they would re-design Gap’s logo. As you can see by the wide variety of entries, a brand can be interpreted based on the logo’s font choices, the colors, the spacing…we could go on and on.

  We deal with logo re-designs and brand identities every day – for more on our thoughts and tips on how to manage your brand, see our Big Idea article on Conceiving and Raising Brands.

  Tags:

  Branding, Design, Site of the Week 

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  Pingback from Site of the Week: 99designs and the Gap Logo « As I see it… October 11, 2010 at 2:37 pm

  [...] Source: Brand Thinking [...]

  Comment from Nanther Thangarajah October 12, 2010 at 9:09 am

  Interesting that Gap has 180′ed and gone back to the their old logo (see Gap’s press release here).

  I still think it’s an elaborate publicity stunt on some level, especially since there was no new official new logo announcement in the first place, apparently. Then again, there is an investor update meeting on October 14. I’ll be curious is there’s any mention of this…brand stumble.

  Pingback from Logo Re-Designs: Fiasco or Success? October 21, 2010 at 8:56 am

  [...] new attention to the company. And others think it was a failed attempt at crowd sourcing. Read our previous post about the Gap [...]

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