Hasta La Ideas

If you haven’t been following the great Gap logo battle after seeing that initial blast of raging hatred of it, then you’re missing out and we need to catch you up immediately. Our former co-editor and current Co.Design ace reporter, Alissa Walker, got to the bottom of who designed the new logo, “Trey Laird and his firm Laird and Partners,” who have been longtime contributors for the company’s design needs. She was also able to talk to their vice president of corporate communications, learning about their plans for putting the new look in place and getting the stock line of how appreciative they are to hear any feedback from consumers. Elsewhere, and where the story starts to get really juicy, is that it appears that Gap somehow thinks the solution to appeasing the design-focused community that started this whole storm is to launch a crowd sourcing project to help them find a newer and even better logo. So said the company’s president, Marka Hansen, on both the Huffington Post and on Facebook. Clearly they must be aware at how much professional designers love and encourage spec work, particularly when its for brands that make hundreds of millions of dollars every year. Never mind that those meanies like Debbie Millman and the AIGA are fighting to tell Gap why this is such a terrible idea and that they should show some respect the design profession — they probably just want to win the $100 gift certificate that will be give to the winning designer themselves. That aside however, excited as you may be, unfortunately this super fun “work for us for free because we screwed up!” opportunity has yet to be launched, so maybe in the interim you can just start tearing up those invoices you were going to send out to your clients this morning, because who needs money these days? After you do that, we highly encourage you to read Mule Design‘s Mike Monterlo‘s excellent, “Dear Gap, I Have Your New Logo.”

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