The logo Gap
Old tried and true Gap logo:
New Gap logo for which the company probably paid a gazillion dollars:
No one seems happy about it. As for me, I tend to be oblivious of logos in general. If you had asked me to describe the old Gap logo before this, I would have been hard-pressed to do so, despite having seen it around for decades. But viewing the old and new in juxtaposition, I can easily say that Gap should have left well enough alone. If it ain’t broke…
The old one is much more striking and substantial looking. Somebody screwed up. Not as bad as new Coike, but still a mistake.
Hey! I LOIKED New Coike!
When top management is fresh out of ideas for growth, they often focus on meaningless change to appear dynamic. MSNBC’s “Lean Forward” is another egregious example.
Oblivious? Hardly…you may not recognize it but logos are making an impression on you everyday. It is just like the people that say “I don’t pay attention to advertising”…hate to tell you…yes you do.
The new one looks like the old one with the bluebackground shrunk so that it interferes with seeing the “p.” Is that a good change?
Maybe they were inspired by the democratic party’s response to their plunging poll numbers:
“Hey, I know! Let’s come up with a new logo!!!”
–
Looks like Daniel Libeskind saw the documentary Helvetica and realized there were still untrod avenues of banality he could rip off. Or someone at GAP HQ found an old PC from the storage closet, plugged it in and played with Microsoft Word circa Windows 3.1.
I wouldn’t discount the fact the new one mostly looks better on smaller screens (such as an iPhone or Android device). If the old logo is displayed large enough to read easily then it has too much of the screen taken up with dark colors – you do not get a nice contrast, you just get dark colors. The newer one gets back to a “contrast” type of look.
My bet is those that are not swayed by such a thing (25+ year olds) shopping habits aren’t going to be changed and the extra “advertising” is seen as a plus. For the younger ones who deal so much through devices then it is a plus all around.
However I would have to say that this only really matters if you are a strong brand otherwise – if you aren’t then your logo/name most likely isn’t the issue (well unless your name is something like “Intercourse With Gerbils” or something similarly bad).
I do not know what they thought to buy with this change – maybe nothing more than looking nicer on younger peoples devices. If they thought it would add more than that – then a waste of money. If that was their goal then maybe money well spent (at least not money spent on something you will not get).
What surprises me, a bit, is that it is conversation worthy. Then again, most men I know, know and care about brand as much as… well, we don’t. I don’t care about any brand unless it specifically works. I may not want the cheapest, but I don’t want the most expensive unless it aces the competition and I use the item frequently. Utility, baby. I will switch brands for better quality, more utility, or because I want to at the drop of a hat. Even if I am doing it just to be contrarian, assuming no loss save a few nickels.
But a clothing store logo? Stupid to foolish, what is the difference? Brand names merely steal from men through their wives and daughters. Cheaper clothes at higher prices often too. Bah!
Companies make the logo, not the other way around. We see this backwardness of thinking in progressives who insist some words like mentally retarded need replacing. Where they foolishly think “intellectually challenged”, as socially engineered replacement words will somehow escape the conotations that got attached to the older phrase.
Well no. You can call a mentally retarded person a picnic table and pretty soon picnic table becomes insensistive to those who think the tail of language wags the dog of reality.
strcpy Says:
October 10th, 2010 at 1:21 am
That hadn’t occurred to me, since I don’t own or use those devices. It makes sense, though.
I remember reading a couple of years ago that many newer popular music CDs are optimized to sound good on iPods and such. But they sound awful when played on a good sound system. I don’t know the technical details, but the sound is compressed or something.
Rickl,
When Mark Steyn interviewed the late Artie Shaw, I believe Shaw said that the clarinet, the trumpet, and the drums were so prominent in Big Band Jazz because you could hear them more clearly on records than, say, a thousand violins. I don’t think Steyn responded immediately, but Steyn later said that those jazzmen were still musicians first, and also had to tour extensively. Once those early recordings were digitally cleaned up, they sounded better than ever. However, Steyn does have a problem with Phil Spector and his “Wall of Sound”, which sounds better on a tinny transistor radio than a good stereo system.
In the midwest, there used to be a chain of family restaurants called “Bill Knapp’s”. They served good food, comfort food, and had relatively small portions, for which reason they were popular with the older folks. Known by the younger folks as the “fossil fort”.
I liked them. Even before I becme a fossil.
They got in some young, dynamic types who wanted to be hipper, and went bankrupt.
Lesson is…if you find yourself with a young, energetic MBA who wants to improve things, take him out and shoot him.
I like it. Asymetrical, minimalist, cool.
I am an old lady. 😉
Forgot to mention the font . . . round, curvy.
What’s with the dearth of good design these days? I’d be laughed out of town if I came in with a D for the Democrat’s new logo, and deservedly so… but then we have a supposed “designer” coming up with this piece of junk, too, so it must be the koolaid…
Some years ago, NBC paid a consultant $800,000 for a new logo. The consultant offered a large, red capital N, only to learn that U Nebraska (welcome to the Big 10) already owned it.
Advertising works best when your NOT paying attention..
which is why car adverts are better than tv ones.
car adverts often happen when your in a suggestible state, that is “split mind”.
ever drive home and forget the uneventful trip? you were basically in a state of hypnosis… and open to suggestions more than other times, as you sat there, did your trip on automatic, thought of what you wanted, and they pumped you.
most people dont know how much money is made classifying and selling you to others. so much so that mcdonalds and others monitor you. in this case, McDees monitores what radio station your on when you drive through. others, like direct tv, make big assumptions based on what your TV is tuned to, whether your watching, or your at work and your dog is
biometrics is being used more and more this way, along with cell phone information (many of the free apps make their money by spying on you).
dont believe me?
MobilTrak
A US company called MobilTrak makes a clever little device that recognizes what radio station a passing car is tuned to, detecting radiation leakage emitted by the antenna.
[which is why satellite was to be so big, they could take this revenue stream and control it]
car dealerships, which monitor the station a prospective customer is listening to and tailor the sales pitch accordingly. For example, someone listening to a classical music station is likely to respond better to an older salesperson in a suit than a younger one with body piercings.
drive throughs are a way to tie the purchase, person, and their likes together…
here is one you dont know of thanks to tom langford. 🙂
when you are driving past a bill board which has programmable images, the images and adverts on it may be tailored to what the people on the high way are listening to.
that is, they read the radio stations as you go by up highway… then a computer proceses this, and then targets the bill board to the crowd better.
you might not know it ladies, but in the stores you like, some of the displays are watching you. and they are using your facial expressions to change prices, and to figure out how to sell you things. (women are easier to sell based on abstractions having little value!!! i learned that while working at ACR on madison ave)
there is also software in the works that will identify you by how you move… and your cell phone…
that way, they can tell you have your cell phone, and will identify remotely waht products you have.
your walking through a small city park, yuo wear nikes, and so both nike and puma pay to hit you with a coupon as you pass the sneaker store
The price of the MobilTrak service ranges from $500 to $6,000 a month, depending on the client and the number of locations they want to monitor.
enjoy…
as i said if you knew all that i know on what people do, you would find it scary compared to what people think is going on.
Mind the Gap.