Now it's "Crowdsourcing?" The Gap would like you to re-design their logo...for free.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Tell Gap to take their Spec and go to Hell

http://yourlogomakesmebarf.com/2010/10/07/tell-gap-to-take-their-spec-and-go-to-hell/

by Viceroy of Vomit on October 7, 2010

So how does GAP/Gap follow-up on a complete frigging design disaster?

By asking the community to fix it for them. For free.



Our official opinion at Your Logo Makes Me Barf is: Fuck Spec. Here, these guys put it a little more nicely: http://www.no-spec.com/

Here’s what to do:

1. Visit this link.
2. Swallow your pride and click “Like”. (You have to Like the page to be able to comment. Blame Facebook, not us.)
3. Give them hell about their crowdsourcing bullshit.
4. Unlike the page. (It’s way down on the bottom left.)
5. Bask in our collective smugness.

Go go go.

[gratuitous]

1. I wonder how much Gap would make?

I remember the guy in the next room in college many years ago. His dad had designed the Bic Boy logo many, many years ago:

http://www.bicworld.com/

He was able to send his son to college with the royalties from that little design. And Gap wants you to do the same thing for them. For free. Who wouldn't jump at the chance?

[Duer 157099]

2. I'm not clicking on those links. But, from what I can understand

I don't think the issue is money. The issue is the voice of the crowd. It's a powerful tool.

[AlabamaLibrul]

7. Of course the issue is money. If it weren't they'd trot out x different pro logos, and ask

which was better and what could be done to improve on them.

It's always about money.

[October]

15. Design by committee? Result: Helvetica

People tend to undervalue artists and their work.

I checked out the Gap site, and it's hideous.

[ohheckyeah]

3. The new logo

is stupid looking. The old one was/is boring.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Looks like they are being bombed pretty well already.

clicking on "like" brings up a sign up with Facebook window.

No thanks.

[xfundy]

5. Kick/rec'd. Incredibly asinine!

For years, advertisers have tried to lure their client base into "giving" them something, whether demographic info, personal information, a feeling of "added value" by being in "the club," but THIS goes far, far over the line.

In my career, I've had to do many "spec" projects, but: I still got my paycheck from the agencies I was working for. Agencies spent buckets of money on trying to lure new accounts, and now clients, potential or otherwise, have come to expect it, even as many of us are now working for ourselves.

No doubt a design team, working @ minimum wage, will have to make whatever mark they approve fit into biz cards as well as outdoor. How gratifying that work must be.

[cbdo2007]

6. We had a similar contest regarding our highways in Kansas City - for free.

The MO Department of Transportation put all their documents online and asked the public for ideas on how to make the commutes in Kansas City better.

I wrote to them and said, "Don't you have a transportation director that you pay X thousands of $$$ per year to come up with these ideas?? Then why are you asking the public to do it for free."

[KamaAina]

8. Very well, then. Here goes:

[xfundy]

9. I just saw the "new" logo.

Whoever could have guessed it would be Helvetica?!

OMG, what a masterful, unexpected triumph of design!

Those crafty Swiss, coming up with something so new and game changing (in the 40s - 50s). Show me the design grid, baby!

[Warren DeMontague]

12. Not to defend it, but honestly, how is it so much worse than the old one?

White text on a blue square vs black text on white, with a tiny blue square.

I just don't buy that one sucks so much inherently more than the other- both strike me as fairly pedestrian, but they're selling denim shirts, not cold fusion reactors. If The "Gap"'s clothes marketing demographic is "bland, but slightly higher end than Target", shouldn't the logo reflect that?

Then again, I don't get most so-called "modern art", either. I don't know why, say, one blank canvas is "brilliant! just brilliant!!!!!!" and another blank canvas is just a blank canvas.

[Norrin Radd]

14. I finally "got" modern art when I took all of those art history courses

in chronological order. After looking at slide after slide after slide of dour religious imagery for a few years, the bright swaths of color and anything goes approach was startling and refreshing.

[Warren DeMontague]

17. I'm certainly in favor of anything goes and bright colors.

And there are lots of extremely cool artists that I like. And I'm not completely oblivious to the idea of art as one-long-conversation-that-has-been-going-on-for-several-centuries...

But for some of it, I think there's a lot of pretense and frankly, hot air. And I don't like how some of the truly gifted and interesting recent talents -think Alex Grey, or Robert Williams- get blown off by the so-called "serious" art community.

[Hannah Bell]

10. why do all these corps feel they need to redesign their logos every few years in the first place?

i've never seen the point.

[Honeycombe8]

11. That's like those t-shirts & caps with company names that you are asked to BUY. Free advertising...

for them, AND they get money for the item on top of the free advertising.

What a racket. But we have a choice whether to buy the stuff.

[Norrin Radd]

13. One of my friends who works at Starbucks headquarters

told me that they've been considering unveiling a new logo, as well. I wonder if the reaction to the Gap's logo will change their plan?

[hobbit709]

16. Instead of Gap, call it F.A.D.

Fashion Addicted Doltwear.

[BurtWorm]

18. How about

CRAP

[Quantess]

19. Anybody who goes along with their marketing ploy is a dolt.

The kind of idiot who will then pay for a t-shirt so they can advertise for GAP on their body.