Recently Gap redesigned their logo and I’m bothered by how we, the design community, are often responding. Dribbble and Twitter are great tools. I use both of them frequently. They are also vessels for people to freely speak their mind. Unfortunately, it’s too often used to degrade and belittle other people’s work.
Regardless of whether the design is good or bad, someone or some group of people probably put a lot of time and hard work into it. Not everything you’ve ever produced has been great, I guarantee it. You didn’t have hundreds of designers telling you how bad it was and recreating their own asinine versions of it.
Do you think the designers of the Gap logo aren’t aware of Dribbble and Twitter? Imagine how you’d feel if you received this kind of feedback on this grand a scale. You’d probably stop designing forever (and no, that’s not what we want the Gap logo designers to do).
There is a proper way to provide constructive feedback. The proper way is not to make a logo that says “Crap” instead of Gap. That’s not clever or funny, it’s hurtful and pointless. However, there have been some good responses from people that think the logo is not very good. We should follow their example instead of just insulting the original designers.
We as designers need feedback, it’s how we make design great. It’s helpful if someone says a design is not good, especially if they can point out key things that might not be working. It’s not helpful if someone says “Oh my god this logo is so bad I’m not even a designer and I could make a better logo.”
So often I hear about great stories of how wonderful the design community is, donating time or money and often banding together to help someone overcome some great hurdle. Why does there have to be a polar opposite of this? Act like an adult, have some pride in your image, and stop bashing other people’s work - you might be in their shoes someday.
