I hope that looking at the other posts on this blog can educate and inspire on some of the features that make a highly effective logo to make a brand the best it can be. But to really see what makes a good logo, we also need to look at what makes a bad one and what to avoid!

A bad logo is often too loud or bright, complicated or confusing, un-cohesive or just downright inappropriate (see https://www.plerdy.com/blog/top-40-bad-logos/ for a bit of a laugh)!

Whilst there are not many examples of bad logos in the fashion industry, we can pick out a couple.

The first example is the well-known clothing company GAP. Gap changed their logo on October 5th 2010, and only a week later on October 12th changed it back again due to such a poor response from customers and critics!

Whilst the old logo was simple and effective with contrasting colours for boldness and a narrow, high contrast serif font for a classic appearance, the changed logo failed in many aspects.

The sans serif, lowercase letters make the logo look seriously underwhelming and plain, give the impression of a less than mediocre brand. The square in the corner looks out of place, un-cohesive with the text as it’s not even the same colour, too contrasted with the rounded letters and not positioned effectively in accordance to the text. It’s no wonder they reverted to the original logo.

Another case is Zara.

The brand changed their logo recently from the wide spaced serif font to a very squashed looking version of the prior logo. Whilst it’s kept the same elegant features such as the serif and high contrast, it certainly looks more messy and less effective than their original. Not the best choice, Zara!