MySpace - Reviving the Brand?

As in a previous post I mentioned the public reaction to the new GAP logo, and the problem being that GAP had not done enough investigation into the opinions of the audience before it was published on the website - leading to complaints.


Now another brand is looking to redesign their logo in the hope to revive itself - MySpace. One of the original social networking sites, since the introduction of Facebook it has lost popularity, and is now about to begin a brand relaunch. 


The idea of the logo is that it makes a visual change in the brand since it first came about in 2003. The new logo will replace the 'Space' with a blank line, in which user generated images can be placed as MySpace is about the user and is what you make it according to Mike Macadaan (MySpace vice president of user experience and design);

"If we really are getting into a place where you're going to be able to show off what you're into - or what it is you're trying to get famous by - the logo needs to be a vessel, an empty stage. It can't be a logo that is all about some big company that's trying to express a whole bunch of their own philosophies."

Although I like the new design, in all honesty I think that it is going to take much more than logo design to revive MySpace as a brand. The decline of it has very little to do with the logo but more with the user experience. People are taking to Facebook and other forms of social media, which although may not seem to be as visually appealing, are much easier for networking and have a much wider target audience.

Gap Logo

Gap's new logo has been pulled by the company after criticism through social media. The logo had originally replaced the existing one on the website, where many people become confused as to whether it was more to encourage debate than to actually be changing. A Gap spokesperson however stated that they had wanted to make the logo more contemporary whilst still including the blue box, but after all the criticism also invited the public to give their suggestions.

It looks like the public won, as Gap have now reinstated their original logo. I can understand why a company may want to update their logo to make it more 'with the times', however the new logo is completely different to the original and a lot of the more successful changes are much more subtle. A change of typeface for example. I definitely prefer the original and as Gap is such a global brand, think that if they were to change their logo they should create much more of a media storm than just changing it on the website.

No Logo

In all honestly I had never heard of this book until about a month ago when on holiday with a fellow design student, who had 'cleverly' brought it to read by the pool for her dissertation. Maybe not the easiest read it turned out as she managed about 1 chapter and gave up due to the heat.

She did however, encourage me to buy it and try reading it for my dissertation, as what she read had been really interesting. Now, I'm about to read it I've done a bit of a google on the book and it looks like it has created quite a lot of hype in the design world. The book, first published in 2000, although mainly about branding, focuses on anti-globalization and four main chapters;

1. No Space - how the expansion of major brands such as 'Nike' are no longer just a name on a product but have begun to pop up everywhere and become almost a lifestyle.
2. No Choice - about how large brands use their size to limit the number of choices available to the public and dominate the market.
3. No Jobs - a major point of anti-globalization where many of the brands can be seen as unethical by moving their factories to other countries and using sweatshops.
4. No Logo - discusses the movements during the 1990s such as the culture jamming movement... I would go into them, however until I've read the book I have to admit I don't actually know what they are!

Reading the reviews and the general overview of the book has made me think that from a designers perspective it's going to be quite a challenging read. Multinational brands are leaders in the markets and putting them into a negative view can only be asking for criticism...but hopefully something in it will come up that I can use in my dissertation on 'co-branding'.