Month: December 2010

The visual design profession has long battled the undervaluing of its craft by companies seeking “work on spec” — meaning, “you designers make a design for me and I’ll pay for the one I like.”  Given that no other industry operates this way, designers are right to be boycotting such attempts to extract free work.

Recently, the GAP clothing company introduced a new logo design. Customers promptly disliked it, and in an attempt to mollify them, GAP offered an invite to designers to “crowd-source” an alternative logo.

Some prominent designers rebelled. MULE design posted a great response.

And that time and effort was used to make sure I delivered something that actually met your needs and objectives. You guys have numbers to meet. (I imagine at least a 10% increase to last year’s $14.5B in revenue, and $967M in net income.) And plans for the future based on meeting those numbers. So do I.

And for the sake of full disclosure I should let you know that I’ve also frequently shopped at your stores. You sell good stuff. But never in my experience has any of your employees offered me a free pair of pants because the ones I was wearing looked bad. I wouldn’t expect them to. Their job is to sell me clothes.

My job is to sell design.

I believe we understand each other. I anxiously await your call and look forward to negotiating a fair value for the greatest logo on Earth.

Brilliant. Read more of the backstory.

And as a final update, GAP has returned to its original logo. Power of the crowds, indeed.