The American retail company Gap recently changed their logo. They went from sophisticatedly classic to amateurishly craptastic:

[Source: Brand New]

To quote the Brand New blog (‘Don’t Mind the Gap, or the Square’):

I’m not one to critique something by saying it looks as if it were done in Microsoft Word but this one is just too unsophisticated to warrant anything more than that.

I couldn’t agree more.

Fortunately, the Internet responded and Brand New have followed up with another post: ‘Follow-up: Gapgate’.

I never expected the Gap logo to be such a lightning bolt of attention. Yes, it’s bad and yes it’s a popular brand, but to have captured the attention of the whole internet, even reaching meme levels wasn’t something I ever expected the grilled chicken of retail brands to achieve.

Speaking of the Gap logo meme, check out:

Also check out Your Logo Makes Me Barf’s reaction – ‘New Gap Logo is a Box of Fail’ – and call to action – ‘Tell Gap to take their Spec and go to Hell’.

The next few days and, indeed, weeks and months should be interesting.

If you live in Melbourne then you probably know that the City of Melbourne went through a major rebranding project earlier this year:

[Source: Brand New]

Since I didn't blog about it then, here's a quick catch-up:

Melbourne's $240,000 makeover [The Age]

Pieces of Melbourne [Brand New]

City of Melbourne, Expanded [Brand New]

City of Melbourne Identity [Landor]

Melburninans will also be aware that, in June, both Connex and Yarra Trams lost their contracts to run Melbourne's trains and trams (respectively). The new operators – Metro Trains for our trains and Keolis Downer EDI (KDR) for our trams – will take over in December.

Metro Trains launched their new branding scheme for Melbourne's trains earlier this year as well: