Gap is tired and its old logo wreaks of the 90s, sweat shops and human rights issues. It needed to rebrand, so it did what any 21k brand worth it's place at the digital table would do: it changed its font to Helvetica. It's clean, it's relevant and if it worked for American Apparel then surely it can work for Gap.Technically speaking, it’s a sans serif Grotesque typeface, inspired by and based on the Akzidenz-Grotesk typeface created by Berthold around 1898. The name Helvetica (Latin for Swiss) was chosen in 1960 to make the font more marketable internationally. It was created specifically to be neutral, to not give any impression or have any meaning in itself. This neutrality was paramount, and based on the idea that type itself should give no meaning.

But successful brands like American Apparel, Target, and American Airlines, Ikea and the NYC Subway have used Helvetica since the beginning and not changed halfway through. It's hard to exercise ownership over such a common font, especially using only three letters. 

Consumers reacted to this change in a predictably hostile way, that would inevitably simmer down to be replaced with acceptance and renewed love for the brand. In fact, the only people who didn't like it for reasons other than change, was the design community, who abused it so badly Gap has now reinstated the old logo. 

Comments such as:

Just as some folks hate Gotham in logos, I hate Helvetica in logos. It has the unique ability to make anything look pedestrian and, in this particular case, it makes Old Navy, Gap’s low-end retail sister, look like a luxury brand by comparison. 

and

There are too many billions of dollars flowing through GAP INC to allow a verbtim helvetica logo (with an impossible to embroider gradient, to boot).

can't have helped. Perhaps Gap should have tried this dubiously useful flow chart.

[Image: HipsterRunoff]