A logo plays a key role in the identification of your brand. It should not only be unique but creative as well. Although it has done wonders for many brands out there by the reality is that not everyone seems to get it right. With that being said, even the most successful organizations can go wrong. For instance, Yahoo once received a huge backlash over its rebranding, and Gap’s logo design was reversed after only a week in 2010. Therefore, whether you plan on designing a new logo or revamping an existing one. There are many common designing mistakes that you can learn from. Let’s discuss.
Poor Font Choice
The first thing you need to consider when it comes to designing a successful logo is selecting the right font choice. It is powerful enough to either make or break your design. If you were to go over the top with the font, it will make the design and brand a bit immature, silly and unprofessional. There are countless examples of logos going down the drain just because the designers choose the wrong font.
Since every brand or company has a different personality, fonts do too as well. Therefore, the right font should reflect the personality of your company or brand. For instance, if you are running a business that sells hand-made products. You should go for a design that is handmade. This highlights the fact that since your business specializes in making hand-made products, it does so even when it comes to logos as well.
Finding the right font initially can be a tough choice. However, you should not panic but play around with different font sizes until you are able to find the right one.
Too Busy
As mentioned previously, it is easy to go overboard with designing your logo. One is always tempted to throw in as much as possible, which can lead to the logo turning into a failure. The reason is that if you were to throw off conflicting images and text into the logo, the viewer can become confused and the purpose of your brand will be defeated. Therefore, to avoid such circumstances, simplicity is key to your brand’s logo success. Simplicity allows versatility, which means that you can reproduce your logo in different mediums and sizes without losing its style or meaning.
The second important factor interms of simplicity is memorability. You want your customers to never forget your brand. Therefore, you have to make it both easy and simple for them to memorize. Your brand’s logo should be simple enough that your customers are easily able to recognize your logo when they think of your brand.
The last thing you would want is your logo to create an impact. Your customers should be able to understand your logo at the first glance. This will help them realize and develop a sense of what your business stands for.
Too Abstract
Another common logo designing mistake to avoid is going too far with the simplicity. When it comes to designing logos, you should remember that you need to find that equilibrium. The reason is that you are trying to convey a message to your customers via a single logo. Therefore, do not assume that the customers will always fill in the blanks.
If a customer looks at your logo and stands in confusion without being able to understand what it means, then you have not done your job properly. You should aim and focus on developing a design that helps you convey the message without losing any of its purposes. However, do not be afraid to add a bit of detail. Just add a few simple details in color, font, and spacing of the image to highlight the business’s mission statement.
Copycat Design
Copying a successful competitor will always destroy your logo. Furthermore, if the customers are able to realize that you have copied another brand’s logo, your reputation will suffer permanent damage. Whether it is intentional or not but copying another brand’s logo will sabotage your marketing attempts and you will be called out sooner or later as well. Not only is it outright plagiarism but when your copy a logo, you are forcing yourself into a comparison with other brands.
If there happens to be a logo that is widely recognized and looks similar to yours, your company is going to get the most heat. It can be understood that you cannot check every design out there but be sure to check your closest competitors.
Raster Images
When it comes to designing logos, you should always use a vector graphics program. A vector graphics program enables the designer to create a very accurate and precise logo with equal dimensions. On the other hand, you can use a raster graphic as well, which is made of pixels. However, these images cannot be scaled to size, which means that your logo is going to look blocky and pixelated. And since now we have mostly moved to using the internet on your mobile phones, it should be made sure that logos scale correctly on different devices.
Driven by Trends
Most logo designers tend to follow the trend. What they do not realize is that trends come and go. Your logo needs to be timeless. However, that does not mean that you should not follow the trend since it is a necessary part of marketing your business. The point is that you should not be dependent on it. You should focus on developing a design that defeats the time for years to come. Although this is one of the most common mistakes designers tend to make but do not feel compelled to stick to them. It might work for everybody else but not you.
Relying too much on the trend eliminates the uniqueness or classiness when you are trying to get your visual identity across your customers. Therefore, you should focus on developing and creating your visual identity as a business.
Clashing Colors
When it comes to choosing the right color combination, you should know that it is as important as picking the right font. If the colors in your logo do not match the rest of the text or details, your logo is going to come off unsophisticated and clunky. The best way to avoid clashing colors is to start without any colors at all. However, this does not mean that your logo should be colorless but it might be a good idea to start designing the logo in black and white.
Once you have developed a good grip on the design and an idea of what you need to do next, you should add the colors. The reason is that by then you will have the shape of your logo, which will help you guide towards the right color selection. You should experiment and play around with a few different colors until you find out what fits with your design.
Unclear Intention
Your business’s logo tends to give an underlying sense of intention to the customers. It gives the customers an idea of your company’s purpose, values, and emotional link to the product. For instance, if you were using an airline logo for your food business, you will be receiving a different type of emotional intention behind it. Customers will always try to link and connect your logo to the company’s essential purpose. Therefore, you need to make sure that these match up.
Forgetting the audience
One of the most overlooked factors when it comes to designing the right logo is forgetting or overlooking the relationship of the audience with the logo itself. You should always remember that your business’s logo should intrigue the audience. It should not be something that the audience does not cater to when they come across it. Therefore, if you were to neglect your audience while creating your logo, you will be left with nothing usable. It is just like forgetting to put grapes in a bottle of grapevine.
The reason you should be aware of your audience and intrigue them at the same time is that it will give you a whole new direction and set of instructions regarding how to come up with a timeless classic as mentioned above.
Poor Placement
Believe it or not, but poor placement is another common post-design mistake. However, it can be easily avoided altogether by planning around it beforehand. You are going to want your logo everywhere that concerns your business. Whether it’s on the homepage of your website or printed merchandise. The point of how to create an exclusive merchandise is of extreme importance in fact and deserves to be discussed in detail out of this topic.
However, still, many people choose to overlook this fact and end up branding carelessly with their logo. They give it the final touches and paste it wherever they can without thinking about how it looks. As a result, sooner or later, this obvious mistake ends up in the designing room again to be fixed.
For instance, logos that appear in the center of a webpage appear awkward as do the logos that occupy the entire width of a business card. Therefore, before you begin branding with your logo, picture it wherever possible. It will give you an idea of selecting the right sizes, positions, and layouts.
Not Doing Enough Research
The point of designing a logo is to convey a message to the audience. It is an art that does not come easy. It is a communication challenge that is both tricky and complicated. This is why when it comes to designing your logo, you should know what to communicate and what not to communicate. This is only possible if you have done the proper research. The more knowledge you have, the better you can do this. This is a huge problem with many designers especially rookie designers. They jump straight into the brainstorming process without gathering proper knowledge and information.
Designing In A Hurry
Designing a logo is not a few minutes job. It needs proper planning and a layout to make sure that you end up with the exact logo you had intended. You might have come across many logo designers working in a hurry to create as many logos as possible. While this might be efficient and quick but there is a huge probability of silly mistakes. You might not notice it at first until you display it at your shop.
Therefore, while designing a logo you need to make sure that you take your time and follow the details. A logo is meant to last for centuries to come. Therefore, if it takes a few hours to do that, you should definitely give it the much-needed time.
Getting Confused By So Many Ideas
When you begin designing your logo, there are many ideas and inspirations in your head. It is easy to get lost and become confused even before the designing starts. The reason is that everything in your head is a puzzle and you are trying to find the pieces to make each idea complete. However, this does not prove fruitful sometimes. Since your brain is cluttered with ideas, you might end up forgetting the original idea or design of your logo. This can be a very frustrating situation where you have to start all over again, which will take extra time and energy.
This is why professionals recommend that you draw the basics of each idea on paper so that the ideas are physically recorded. This way, you will be able to memorize all the details as soon as you come across a particular idea and will know right away what needs to be done.
Final Word
Designing the perfect logo for your business can be a frustrating process. However, if you were to consider the mistakes outlined above, you are more likely to get it right the first time. Remember, the key lies in finding a balance between what you should convey and what the customer perceives. If the customer develops a whole different idea about your business, especially from the logo, you are destined to revisit the designing studio.