There is a bit of a conundrum going on in the creative professional community. The problem? The Internet is seemingly cheapening the efforts of high-profile designers, programmers, and other similar jobs on the Web. It’s a global issue, and it is likely only to get worse!
What really sparked this controversy is another recent controversy that surrounded the historic and memorable GAP logo. The company had decided to change its brand and identity with a refresh of its logo. But it was a disaster and nothing more. The logo failed to impress anyone, and even I was shocked at how poorly it was executed. But I wasn’t the only one that noticed.
The whole Internet seemingly took notice, and even people who would not typically be interested in this type of discussion jumped in to voice their opinion about the disgust of the change. Clearly, Gap had made a huge mistake, which the company acknowledged.
Rightfully, Gap had intended to go back to the drawing board, and they did. So the crisis was averted, right? No… not quite.Things got even more chaotic after Gap stated that they would hold a contest on their Facebook account, where they asked users to submit logo ideas and designs. This is a task normally handled by a professional in brand identity, who would do the necessary research and brainstorming with the company to design a brand identity that would be suited for the company. These designers take pride in their work, and they expect to be compensated for it as well. But the route that Gap was taking would avoid them altogether — the creative community took notice.
There was an immediate uproar from the design community about Gap’s attempt to forego the traditional process from which developing a brand identity is usually done. This is actually quite common on some websites, where people bid or simply submit logo designs for a client and then the client chooses the winner and pays for the rights to the logo. Admittedly, this might be great for a small business who simply can’t invest the time and resources into hiring a designer to do the job, but that alone still creates controversy from the design community.
Regardless, Gap is not a small or even medium sized business. Gap is a huge corporation with stores around the globe. Surely they can afford to hire a professional to do the work. But they didn’t. And it appears that the design community took that as a slap in the face. Not only because it seemingly discredits the efforts of professional designers, but that could have set a trend where other large companies opt to forego the design process altogether.
