Gap apologises and scraps new logo after uproar

Gap North America president Marka Hansen said in a statement today that the US casualwear giant had not approached the launch of the new logo in the “right way”.  

She added that she had seen an “outpouring of comments from customers and the online community in support of the iconic blue box logo” and had decided to axe the new logo which first appeared on www.gap.com on Monday.

It then appeared on Gap’s Facebook profile and the retailer’s online followers began a tirade of angry comments about the logo which changed the font and made it black and added a small blue box in the top right hand corner.

“We’ve learned a lot in this process. And we are clear that we did not go about this in the right way. We recognize that we missed the opportunity to engage with the online community.  This wasn’t the right project at the right time for crowd sourcing.” 

Gap North America president Marka Hansen

Hansen responded at the time by suggesting that the online community could submit designs themselves for a new logo.

However, today she said: “Last week, we moved quickly to address the feedback and began exploring how we could tap into all of the passion. Ultimately, we’ve learned just how much energy there is around our brand. All roads were leading us back to the blue box, so we’ve made the decision not to use the new logo on gap.com any further.

“We’ve learned a lot in this process. And we are clear that we did not go about this in the right way. We recognize that we missed the opportunity to engage with the online community.  This wasn’t the right project at the right time for crowd sourcing.” 

She added that the logo may be changed in the future but that “when that time comes, we’ll handle it in a different way“.

The retailer said that it would revert to its traditional logo on www.gap.com and would turn it red for the US holiday season.