Whenever I hear a major brand has redesigned its logo, my ears perk up. I’m excited to see the brilliance they’ve come up with, how they’ve kept the soul of the brand but put a new face to it. It’s a very difficult tightrope to walk, but often the results are beautiful.
And then there was Gap. They certainly had my attention as Bill Chandler, Gap’s VP of corporate communications, was quoted in a FastCoDesign.com article: “We love the design, but we’re open to other ideas and we want to move forward with the best logo possible.”
Gap’s redesign stumbled right out of the gate. So much in fact that they just announced (via their Facebook page) that they will be going back to the original logo.
I don’t want to just poke at their wound, but there are some things churches can learn from this experience.
1. Ask why
As the owner of a design studio, it’s easy to get bored with our logo. I’m tempted to change it once a month, and I know that can often be the case with your ministry logo too. It’s a new year, you saw another logo that was really cool, the reasons can go on and on. But you have to step back and have a clear purpose behind the redesign. Do your research, look at your market, understand the why of the redesign.
When you’ve done that you can then do what Gap missed out on as marketing expert Joellyn Sargent points out, “Gap should have primed the pump, so to speak, by explaining why a new logo was in order, and how they arrived at the design.”
If you have a purpose behind the redesign people can get excited about it and you can have fun rolling it out.
2. Recognize the trust
Dr. Karen E. Mishra of Michigan State University points out, “They didn’t realize how much trust had been built in their brand because of their logo. The comments I have been reading about the old Gap logo are emotional—people had made an emotional connection with the Gap logo and I think the folks at Gap overlooked this.”
If you’ve been over to the Church Marketing Lab and looked at much of the critique when it comes to logo design you’ll see comments like “needs more personality,” “too generic” and “show people who you are.” Whether you’re developing a brand new logo or redesigning an old one, recognize that a logo is more than a pretty mark. It contains emotion and personality and as you build the brand, that emotion grows stronger and stronger (and if it doesn’t, you’re doing it wrong). People begin to own that mark as much as you do. So don’t do things that void that trust such as what Dr. Mishra points to in Gap’s case of “not being open about the change, appearing incompetent, and also appearing to not care.”
3. Don’t fill in the gaps
It’s no secret that Gap is struggling in the highly competitive clothing market. Perhaps they were hoping putting together a new look would fix that. But as Mandy Minor, co-founder and president of J. Allan Studios, told us: “People want to believe that a new logo is going to fix problems, but the truth is that a logo is only as good as the company behind it.” Often people will point to Nike, Starbucks and Apple as great examples of logos and branding. The truth is they’re not really great logos at all, but great companies with a logo (and of course millions of advertising dollars).
The greatest logo in the world isn’t going to fix all your problems. In fact, such as the case at Gap, it may highlight some of them.
So before working on your church’s logo again, maybe you should work on your church.
4. Don’t jump on the bandwagon
In what I can only imagine was an attempt at damage control, Gap quickly jumped to crowdsourcing. How could that ever go wrong, it’s so popular? But because there wasn’t strategy behind the move, it only drew more criticism and showed the downsides of crowdsourcing and spec work.
The lesson here is to take the process seriously. Realize that though a great logo may look easy to develop, it’s much more than a few clicks of a mouse. Find someone you can trust and link arms with them in ministry.
Better Church Logos
If you’re struggling with your church’s logo, take heart that you’re not alone. It’s not easy, as Gap and even MySpace have recently proven. Sometimes logo refreshes go well and sometimes they don’t (check out these recent examples). Remember that your brand is more than a logo and get back to the basics of logo design.
Cliff Seal
October 12, 2010
Agreed. I had a slightly different take on it: http://logos-creative.com/the-great-gap-logo-stunt-maybe
Jeremy Scheller
October 12, 2010
How about…
The people who got you HERE, may not be the people to get you THERE…
Michael Buckingham
October 12, 2010
Jeremy – will you unpack that a bit more?
Cliff – Interesting take, I hadn’t seen that spin. I have seen some who thought all the press was good for Gap which I disagree with. For me, it reaffirms Gap’s lack of style.
Cliff Seal
October 12, 2010
I agree with you personally, but if it was a PR stunt, and if it was directed at American Apparel customers, they certainly don’t appreciate style in advertising. Look at what AA has been throwing in ads for the last several years…tasteless.
@PaulSteinbrueck
October 12, 2010
A couple other things to keep in mind…
– A lot of people hate change, even change for the better. Expect criticism any time you make a logo change.
– The people who hate change the most, make the most noise. I haven’t been following the GAP debacle closely, but chances are it’s 0.01% of people making the most noise. Don’t jump to conclusions based on what a very small, vocal minority is saying.
Jeremy Scheller
October 12, 2010
from what I’d read before, that design firm had been with Gap for a generation. When you’re going to refresh your brand, it’s often a better approach to shop around, get an outsider’s perspective.
The design firm that took this far (with your now slumping sales) may not be the design firm that is going to reinvigorate your brand and drive you into the future.
I work with a lot of startups and small businesses. I know when to quit. If I think I’m at the end of the road with a client and they would benefit more by going with someone else, I step aside. You have to know when to take out your starting pitcher and get a fresh arm into the game…
Chris Syme
October 12, 2010
Your first point is the best point–logo change has to be facilitated by a “why?”. A few years back Wal Mart rolled out a new logo and people hit the roof, pronounced failure, etc. But truth was, Wal Mart was rolling out a new image at the same time and they (very) successfully went from being the place with the cheapest prices to the place that people could trust to outfit, feed and entertain their families for less. Wal Mart changed from showing us how cheap they were to how much we could do with less money. Don’t change logos to kick start your failure. Change logos to parallel a strategy of change in your identity. I think the reason Gap couldn’t “prime the pump” was that they weren’t intending to do anything new–just the same old water coming out of the old pump.
@stevefogg
October 12, 2010
Wow, you’ve written a really great post here Michael! I’ve seen time and time again new ministry leaders come in and want to change the name and logo – because they are new. They haven’t thought so much about the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’. If we only spend more time on the why rather than the ‘how’ or the ‘what’ we would be streets ahead in ROI.
In Australia we only just our 1st Gap store opening now so this issue isn’t really biting over here – GAP certainly isn’t a loved brand here, I’m not sure what people think of it in the U.S.? I also see parallel’s with Coke improved formula’ and the reaction to changing a the essence of brand that people are attached to.
Having not seen the new logo, it does feel a bit corporate on first glance, but then I haven’t heard of any rationale why they did what they did.
I’d also agree with Paul, sometimes the minority can be louder than the majority.
Bobby Minor
October 13, 2010
Honestly most church websites and logos are pretty bad and either communicate the wrong thing or don’t communicate anything at all. I was talking with the pastor of a fairly decent sized church last week and they’ve had the same logo for 25 years that was nothing more than clip art and had no tie in to what the church was about. With that being said he was getting push back from some members about changing it.
Great post.
Brian Klassen
November 17, 2010
The logo game is often misunderstood. So many designers try and tell an entire story with one little mark (the illustration logo). This is sometimes directed by the client, but is often a combination of the client and designer trying to do to much with a tool that was meant for one purpose – memorability. Many start by trying to build in deep meaning, which normally leads to “complex/forgettable”. What you are really trying to create is ridiculous simplicity which allows for/invites brand impressions to be attached to it. I call it the “sticky factor”.
In the case of changing an already established logo with a decent amount of awareness, it is usually better to tweak than start from scratch. (Coke is a great example of this). Don’t make your viewer start all over. Allow them to come on board and experience the journey (great point about preparing the viewers ahead of time).
One last point. Even the worst of logos can do a great job if you have the dollars to build frequency. The problem for ministries/churches is that those types of dollars are usually not available and why we focus on simplicity and quality.
Fantastic conversation.
Michael Buckingham
November 18, 2010
While I agree it certainly needs to be memorable, it does indeed need to show your personality and set the stage for your story. I see way to many designers that only focus on what looks good, and while things need to look nice they must say something other way people will forget them.
Of course you’re right with enough money the worse logos become great, my personal favorite in this regard is Nike. “that logo only cost $35 and look how great it is…” goes the conversation, what we forget is it cost $35+millions of advertising, and it’s really not a great logo without that. I do think we too often look at large brands and try to apply what works with them to the church, it’s a different beast.
Sheila
November 30, 2010
Our church just changed it’s logo…again. Several years ago it had no logo, at least none that I was aware of. Then a new pastor came on and our logo became…yep, a stylized cross. Certainly not the most innovative design. But out rolled a bunch of literature, cards and so on with that design. Now less than 3 years later, for some unknown reason, the design has been altered. Grab your seats, they cleaned up the stylized cross, and put a church building in the background. Wow eh. Apparently we were a church without a building in the first logo and a church with a building in the second logo (despite the fact that we’ve always had a building….). The pastor spoke about the meaning behind the logo but the meaning is not self evident. Anyone who didn’t attend that service and hear the explanation is likely to never know what the logo means. And more importantly no one who sees our logo is likely to discern anything more than a cross and a building.
It’s great to have meaning in one’s logo that the organization can orient itself to but it’s also important to convey some meaning to those outside of the organization.