# Gap: a new logo withdrawn after about a week of online protest

Source: https://sarang.pro/gap-logo-change/
Author: Sarang | Published: 13 December 2025

## The situation

On 6 October 2010 Gap, the American clothing retailer, quietly replaced the logo on its US website. For twenty years its mark had been white serif capitals inside a dark blue square. The new one was black, set in bold Helvetica, with a small blue box tucked above the upper right of the letter "p". Gap's corporate communications chief, Bill Chandler, described it as a more contemporary and modern expression of the brand.

Customers disagreed, loudly and quickly. Within about a day, according to one account, a blog had collected 2,000 negative comments, a parody Twitter account had reached 5,000 followers and a site that let people draw their own Gap logo had gathered around 14,000 designs. Gap responded by asking its Facebook followers to submit their own versions, then dropped that idea as well. Late on Monday 11 October, about a week after the launch, the company announced that it was going back to the old logo everywhere.

The episode is often told as a story of a company defeated by social media. The facts are a little different and more useful. Gap changed a mark that very few people had asked to change, it did so without telling its customers why, and it reversed within a week. It also changed the logo in a year when its sales were not collapsing but were not growing fast either. Gap's president for North America, Marka Hansen, said afterwards that the company had learned a lot and had not gone about the process in the right way.

This case covers the company's position in 2010, the retail market it worked in, the options it had, the sequence of events, the effect on the business as far as the sources allow, and criticism of both the redesign and the retreat. It ends with Gap's progress up to 2025.

## Background

### A specialty retailer at scale

Gap was founded in 1969, according to the Branding Journal. By the end of fiscal 2010, the year ended 29 January 2011, Gap Inc. was a group of brands: Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, Piperlime and Athleta, the last bought in September 2008 for $148 million. Its annual report for the year gives net sales of $14,664 million, up 3 per cent from $14,197 million, and net income of $1,204 million, up 9.3 per cent. The group employed about 134,000 people and operated 3,246 stores, of which 3,068 were company-run and 178 were franchised.

### How the money was made

The company reports two segments, Stores and Direct. In fiscal 2010 store sales rose by $286 million, or 2 per cent, while Direct, the online business, grew 16 per cent, or $181 million, to $1.3 billion. Direct and international sales together made up 22 per cent of net sales, up from 20 per cent a year earlier. So the business was still mainly stores, with online growing fastest.

### The Gap brand itself

The logo change was for the Gap brand, which was not the group's strongest. In the annual report, comparable store sales in North America for Gap fell 1 per cent in fiscal 2010, while Old Navy rose 2 per cent and Banana Republic rose 3 per cent. For the group, comparable sales rose 1 per cent after falling 3 per cent in fiscal 2009. The Branding Journal gives different same-store figures, saying sales were down 4 per cent after a 10 per cent fall the year before. Those numbers do not match the company's filing, so the filing is used here and the other is flagged as unverified.

### The old logo

The Branding Journal dates the old mark to 1990. It was a dark blue box with white serif lettering. After two decades it was well known, and as later events showed, many customers felt an attachment to it that the company either missed or underrated.

## The industry

### Selling clothes in 2010

Gap was operating after the 2008 financial crisis, which the Branding Journal links to its sales slump. The group's results for the year show a business recovering slowly. Net sales rose 3 per cent and comparable sales 1 per cent, and operating margin was 13.4 per cent, up from 12.8 per cent, according to the company's results release of 24 February 2011. Fourth-quarter net sales were $4.36 billion against $4.24 billion, with comparable sales flat. Chief executive Glenn Murphy said 2010 was the fourth straight year of double-digit earnings-per-share growth.

These figures show a strong profit record. They also show how little room there was to grow sales in the core Gap brand, which may be why management wanted a fresh look.

### Brand and web as one market

The sources do not name competitors or give market shares, and none are claimed here. What they do show is the growing role of the web. Direct sales grew 23 per cent in the fourth quarter to $404 million. A logo shown first on the website reached a customer base that was also on social networks, which may help explain why the answer came within hours.

### Social media as a public square

By 2010 Facebook and Twitter let any dissatisfied customer find others and join them. TechCrunch listed what grew up in the days after the launch: a fake Twitter account, a logo-generator site called Craplogo, a campaign to change avatars and a failed logo crowdsourcing project on Facebook. Management Today reported more than 2,000 Facebook fans criticising the logo and a Twitter account set up to get rid of it with 5,000 followers, a total of about 7,000 people. The Drum put the Facebook comments at more than 2,000. The figures differ by source and by how they were counted, but they all point to a concentrated and fast reaction.

## The decision

The sources do not reveal the internal deliberations. The options below are the obvious ones open to the company, framed as alternatives and not as a record of meetings.

### Option one: keep the old logo

The blue box had served the brand for twenty years. Leaving it alone would have avoided any controversy. The cost was a brand mark that management evidently thought could be more modern. The company's own wording, a "more contemporary, modern expression", shows that modernising was the aim.

### Option two: evolve the logo gradually

The company could have made small changes to the blue box, such as adjusting the lettering, and kept the shape customers knew. Hansen hinted at this later when she said a time might come to evolve the logo, and that if so it would be handled in a different way. A small step would have lowered the risk of rejection.

### Option three: replace it and launch quietly

This is what Gap did. It changed the mark in one move and put it on the website with little explanation. The change was bold, since the box shrank to a small detail and the lettering changed from serif to a plain sans serif. The signals customers used to recognise the brand were largely gone.

### Option four: ask customers first

Gap asked its Facebook followers for ideas, but the sources show this happening after the criticism started. Hansen later said that the company missed the chance to engage the online community and that the project was not right for crowdsourcing. Asking before the launch, rather than after the backlash, might have given customers a role. It might also have given the company a design it did not want. The sources do not say which.

### What was at stake

A logo is cheap to change in comparison with a store refit, but it is seen wherever the brand is printed or shown. If customers saw a weaker brand, a retreat would be costly and visible. If they liked it, the refresh might help a brand with falling comparable sales.

## What they did

### The launch, 6 October 2010

The new logo went live on Gap's US website. The Branding Journal says it was designed by the New York agency Laird and Partners, and estimates a cost of about $100 million citing Canny Creative. That figure is a third-party estimate with no supporting detail and is not relied on here. Management Today says Gap called the redesign "contemporary and current".

### The first reaction

Social media filled with mockery. TechCrunch's account lists the fake Twitter account, Craplogo and the avatar campaign, and records comparisons with the logo MySpace had just launched. A professional designer quoted by Management Today said that a retailer's job was to sell clothes, and his own was to sell design, so the criticism came from many sides.

### The crowdsourcing move

Gap did not drop the logo immediately. It first defended the change, as CNN Money reports, and asked customers for design ideas. The Branding Journal says Gap presented the change as a crowdsourcing effort, a claim it finds unconvincing, and The Drum says Gap tried to crowdsource a new logo through its Facebook page. The effect was to hand part of the decision to the crowd that was criticising the logo.

### The reversal, 11 and 12 October

Gap announced late on Monday 11 October that it would restore the blue box logo on its website and across all channels. The Drum's report is dated 12 October. The Branding Journal counts six days from launch to reversal. In the announcement Hansen said that all roads were leading back to the blue box. She also said, in the Drum's account, that the company had learned just how much energy there is around its brand.

### What the company said it learned

CNN Money quotes Hansen saying the company had learned a lot and that it did not go about this in the right way. She conceded that crowdsourcing was not the right approach and added that there might be a time to evolve the logo, but that it would be handled differently. The company thus left the door open to future change.

The case on one page. Free to save and share with credit.

## What happened

### The business around the episode

The fiscal 2010 results came out on 24 February 2011, after the reversal. Net sales were $14.7 billion, up 3 per cent, diluted earnings per share were $1.88, up 19 per cent from $1.58, and net earnings were $1.2 billion. The fourth quarter, which includes the weeks of the logo episode, saw net sales of $4.36 billion and flat comparable sales against a 2 per cent rise a year earlier. Quarterly earnings per share were $0.60, up from $0.51.

MeasureFiscal 2009Fiscal 2010
Net sales$14,197 million$14,664 million
Net income$1,102 million$1,204 million
Diluted earnings per share$1.58$1.88
Comparable sales, groupDown 3 per centUp 1 per cent
Gap brand comparable sales, North AmericaNot given in sourcesDown 1 per cent

The record for the year as a whole is therefore one of growth in sales and profit. A week of mockery for a logo did not visibly damage the accounts.

### The share price

TechCrunch cited a figure of $247 million lost in stock value, noting that the logo change coincided with a disappointing sales report. The sources do not show that the logo caused the fall, and since the sales report arrived at the same time, the link is unproven.

### The weeks after

The March 2011 sales release shows a weak month: net sales for the five weeks to 2 April 2011 were $1.33 billion against $1.45 billion a year earlier, down 8 per cent, with comparable sales down 10 per cent against a rise of 11 per cent the year before. Gap North America comparable sales fell 9 per cent. That release also cited the effect of events in Japan on the quarter. The logo was five months in the past, and nothing in the source ties the March result to it.

### Limited lasting damage

The Branding Journal argues that many customers never saw the change before it was reversed, which spared the company a longer sales effect. That is a judgement and not a measured result. The sources provide no sales data that isolates the logo. The strongest measurable effects were on reputation, with press coverage that presented the company as out of touch with its customers.

## Other views

### Critics of the design

Rana Khodadoust, a strategist at Wolff Olins, said the new logo signalled a brand that was anything but confident and even more disconnected than she had thought. This was a professional judgement that the change reflected weakness, not strength. Other commentators compared the mark with MySpace's new logo, which was seen as an unflattering link.

### Critics of the reversal

TechCrunch's author argued that few people really liked the new logo but called the reversal a capitulation to users. The concern is that a company which retreats at the first loud reaction may look weak, and may train its audience to expect that noise will work. The counter-argument is that a retailer depends on goodwill, and a mark that customers reject is not worth defending.

### Was the crowd representative?

Management Today counts about 7,000 people who objected on Facebook and Twitter. For a company serving millions of shoppers, that is a small group. The sources do not show whether most customers disliked the logo or cared at all. The Branding Journal says many never noticed the change. The loud objectors may have been a minority whose reach exceeded their numbers, which raises the question of how far a firm should react to online noise.

### Limits of the evidence

No source here shows how many customers saw the new logo, how much it cost or whether sales moved because of it. The cost estimate of about $100 million is from a third party. The Branding Journal's same-store sales figures conflict with the filing. The stock loss of $247 million is tied to the logo only by timing. A careful reading treats the episode as a reputational event with no proven financial effect.

## Reading it through a framework

### Stakeholder mapping

Stakeholder mapping sorts those affected by a decision by their interest and influence. For the logo, the stakeholders included shoppers, loyal fans of the old mark, designers and brand commentators, the press, staff, and investors watching a sales report. The company treated the change as a matter of brand management under its own control. Yet the most vocal group was a set of ordinary customers with a low formal power but a strong ability to spread complaints cheaply. By consulting nobody before launch and asking everybody afterwards, Gap met the group with the quickest voice at its weakest moment. Hansen's later admission that the company missed the chance to engage the online community describes that mapping failure.

### Brand equity

Brand equity is the value that a name and its signs add to a product. The blue box had been used since 1990, which gave it a recognisable form that cost little to maintain. Management's wish for a more modern look may have been sound as a design opinion, but the old design had value as a signal because customers recognised it. Changing it spent that value in exchange for a refresh nobody had requested. The speed of the retreat suggests that management weighed that value more highly once customers made it visible. The comparison with Tropicana's 2009 carton, another case where a familiar sign was changed and quickly restored, shows the same pattern.

## Since then

The sources opened show the group's later results, not any further logo change. For fiscal 2024, reported in March 2025, net sales were $15.1 billion, up 1 per cent, operating income was $1.1 billion at a 7.4 per cent margin and comparable sales rose 3 per cent. The chief executive was Richard Dickson. In the fourth quarter the Gap brand's net sales fell 3 per cent to $980 million, while its comparable sales rose 7 per cent. Old Navy's net sales were $2.2 billion, with comparable sales up 3 per cent, and Athleta's comparable sales fell 2 per cent.

Fiscal 2024 net sales of $15.1 billion compare with $14.7 billion in fiscal 2010, a rise of about 3 per cent over fourteen years in cash terms. The comparison comes from two different company documents and is a rough one, with no adjustment for inflation, currency or the 53rd week.

The sources do not describe any further attempt to change the Gap logo, and none is claimed. For a reader, the later figures matter chiefly as a reminder that the group's fortunes turned on trading and brand strength across many years, not on a week in October 2010.

## What to take from it

- A logo carries recognition that took years to build, so a company changing one should know what customers value in it before it touches it.

- Launching a change without explaining it leaves the explanation to critics, who will supply their own within hours.

- Asking customers for ideas after a backlash looks like a reaction, and asking before a launch is a different and better act.

- A fast, clear reversal can limit damage, though it also teaches an audience how much influence it has.

- Reputational events and financial results are separate, and a careful analyst does not credit one to the other without evidence.

## Questions to think about

- If you led the Gap brand in 2010 and wanted to refresh the logo, what steps would you take before any public launch?

- Was reversing within a week the right call, or should Gap have held its position until the noise faded? What would you want to know before deciding?

- About 7,000 people objected online, out of millions of customers. How should a company weigh a small, loud group?

- What is the difference between crowdsourcing as a design method and crowdsourcing as a way to buy time?

## Concepts at work

This case draws on brand identity, stakeholder engagement and crisis response in social media. Explore them in [Insights](/insights/).

*Written from the public sources listed below. Figures are as those sources report them.*