Design as Conversation: "Give us back our serifs!"

The original logo

Design is often said to be a conversation, a give and take or dialogue between people or groups about design. But who is this conversation between? I immediately think of the recent debate over the Gap logos. Gap is a clothing retailer that has been around for many, many years, and for the last 20 years Gap has been well branded by the famous and recognizable blue box logo.  Two weeks ago, without any warning, Gap rolled out an updated website with a brand new logo. The internet exploded and apparently the apocalypse was upon us because Gap changed their logo. Bloggers all over the web started screaming about the new logo and Gap's facebook page had thousands of comments against the new logo. Both logos are very simple but Gap went sans serif and everyone freaked out! Gap's original plan was to launch the new logo on their website and within the next month to redesign all their in-store advertising. Within a week of releasing the new logo there was so much criticism surrounding the logo that Gap completely scrapped it and went back to their original. Who knew there were such passionate feelings over a store's logo.

The updated logo

This is a great example of design as a conversation and in the case the sides of that conversation are very clear; the consumer and the designer. Gap spent a great deal of time, resources, and money redesigning their logo only for it to have been met with distaste. Something was designed and the people for who it was designed for did not respond well and because of their response the designers have had to back to the drawing boards, so to speak. It's that give and take, back and forth, of conversation that made up this Gap debate. Gap would have been foolish to keep their new logo knowing full well that their very own customers hated it. It would have been bad business and maybe the whole reason for listening and taking part in the conversation was strictly for business but the design still lead to that conversation. What makes this whole situation even more interesting is that had a long-standing company like Gap redone their logo in a similar situation twenty years ago there would have been no real chance for this conversation. A decision would have been made and everyone would have stuck with that. But in today's world with the internet and the prevalence of social networking sites a conversation can happen very quickly and many, many people can be involved. Thousands of people logged onto their facebooks and commented on Gap's own page about the logo. That's a large conversation that can happen and it can have real influence over large corporations. That's the power of design and, specifically, design as a conversation. Conversation got that logo changed, it's powerful stuff.

*Photo Credit:
jmorganmarketing.com
www.zimbio.com