The internet is a-buzz about the new Gap logo.

The new logo was unceremoniously pushed to their website a week or two ago, and the internet hasn’t looked back since. Designers (including myself) and the layman alike have decried the new logo and have made it very public that they kind of don’t care for it. On their Facebook page, a spokesperson has said, in that very special brand of PR speak, that they’re “so excited" that everyone has taken such “passionate" stances on the new logo and are welcoming customer submissions.

While I won’t go into specifics on the merits of the new logo, I wanted to touch briefly on this movement I’ve been seeing on many websites talking about it: that this is a heavily orchestrated PR stunt for the Gap.

I think it’s very cynical to believe that the Gap had deliberately made a bad logo just to then outsource it to the customer. There’s a level of ridiculousness that I just can’t believe a company would allow. While on the one hand, it feels like that idea has some legs: the Gap is positioning itself as a brand of the people, so much so that the people themselves have decided how the brand should look. Customers will see this new user generated logo and think “I did that. I helped the Gap make an important decision. That’s my company."

But that’s just it – a logo should tell the customer what the company is all about, not the other way around. And how would you feel if that was your brand? Who wants a company – especially a fashion brand – that sets a precedent that it is unconfident, that says “Please like us! We’ll do anything!".

I can’t get behind this notion of bad publicity as good publicity. I’m more inclined to believe that this logo was a concept that accidentally got pushed to the website and garnered more attention than the Gap was hoping.

Though as one commenter on the Creative Review blog noted, it seems nothing is sacred in advertising…