The Biggest Logo Design Mistakes You Could Make Right Now

It is impossible to understate how important a logo is for a business. The logo represents a visual representation of the brand’s identity. This small symbol stands out as very powerful for the success of any company. But, it is quite difficult to get it right.

The truth is that there are numerous logo design mistakes that could be made. Unfortunately, most logos are actually bad. And oftentimes, this is because of the common errors highlighted by ESBO SEO below.

Designing Based On Trends

There are always some trends that are followed by most people. And you might be tempted to do what is trendy since this would be flashy and can definitely make a good impression. However, a logo needs to be timeless.

When you rely on trends, you might end up with a logo that will quickly look cliché and dated. You can never expect a trend to last for a long time. As a result, make sure that you design logos that will be relevant years from now.

Inappropriately Using Typefaces

Good typeface always has a positive impact on logo design. And the opposite is also correct since it quickly makes the logo look completely unprofessional.

With typefaces, you simply cannot take chances. The designer has to make the appropriate choice and never use too many fonts.

Remember that every single typeface has a specific personality. You have to pick that font that perfectly reflects the characteristics of the icon and supplements the brand’s message.

Using Poor Colors

Out of all mistakes designers make right now, this is definitely the most common. Usually, colors are arbitrarily chosen because the designer wants to add some preferred colors. Instead of this, the designer needs to understand color psychology. Without this, the logo would not be that impressive and will not be able to transmit the desired message.

Always add color at the end. This should be the last decision you make. First, you should design the logo in grayscale and black and white. The best logos always look great in color and black and white forms.

Using Raster Images

The problem when you use raster images is that they will not scale well. A raster image is made out of pixels and when you scale it to larger sizes, images start to blur. Logo quality is basically very bad.

Logos should always be designed in software that uses vector graphics. This leads to high versatility and you can be sure that the logo can be scaled to any size without any quality losses.

Very Complex Design

Another logo design mistake we should highlight is the creation of very complex designs. Logos have to be simple to be effective. When they are complex, their purpose is actually defeated since the target audience will have problems understanding the meanings behind graphics.

Logos should not have too many colors, icons, or bad typeface pairings. All of these can lead to brand misrepresentation. Look at all the big brands out there and you will notice that they are mainly memorable because of how simple they are.

A Lack Of An Intuitive Design Process

Whenever you talk to your team and you ask for ideas, it is possible to end up with dozens. When you ask the team to simply choose one without expressed reasoning, rubric, or guidelines, you will be faced with a really problematic situation in which it becomes impossible to choose a single option. Fruitless iteration appears and this tends to last for a very long time.

In order to save time and speed up the logo design process, you need to create a process that is intuitive and clear. This helps to create very strong logos because everyone knows what to do and look for. At the same time, the stress put on your team to create something special is reduced, which usually leads to better results.

Not Understanding Terminology

When you want to create logos that are memorable, everyone on the design team has to be on exactly the same page. This means the same language has to be spoken. You simply need to use the correct terminology or the process will go very bad.

You practically have to know all the logo definitions. This is much more important than you might believe right now because this is a term that ended up being sort of a catch-all for an image that is related to the brand. When looking at logo design though, there are specific definitions for terms like logomarks, combination marks, and wordmarks.

To better exemplify this:

• Logomark – This is an image that represents the brand, like the apple for Apple.
• Wordmark – The name of the brand presented with a stylized font, like the script used by Coca Cola on the bottles.
• Combination Mark – Both the brand name and the image are presented together, like with the logo often used by Puma.

Since versatility and flexibility are so important for logo design, companies tend to have all of the three logo types presented before. But usually, when people talk about a logo, they talk about the combination mark logo.

Lack Of Research

Not doing research or not enough research can easily lead to bad results. At its core, logo design is a challenge in communication. You need to use imagery in order to capture the essence of a brand. Then, you have to communicate everything through a logo. In order to properly do this, you have to deeply understand exactly what you try to communicate. You also need to know what you do not want to communicate. All of this knowledge allows you to create the best possible logos.

Impatient brands and beginner designers often start the brainstorming stage before going through a good brand education. The resulting logo would be weak since it will not reflect or represent the brand in an accurate way.

Try to get all the knowledge that you need to create a memorable logo. This implies conducting brand audit surveys and so much more. After you gather all the information you need about the objectives and goals of the brand, you have to learn all that you can about the target audience. All of this data is then used to create the strongest possible design for a logo that is highly memorable.

Using Highly Generic Images

The truth is this is something that should not even be mentioned but many logo designers do very generic work. The brand can become just a forgotten image in the mind of the consumer when generic imagery is utilized. For instance, when you use the lightbulb as a way to symbolize an idea or hands shaking in order to symbolize a community, the resulting logo will not be memorable.

Logo design aims to find a visual representation of the brand. It has to be accurate, not vague. Symbolism can definitely be utilized but it is very important to be creative when employed.

Not Realizing When Using Inappropriate Images

Details are vital for logo design, and design in general. White space and shapes can be strategically used in order to effectively reinforce brand messages. The problem is that this approach can also easily backfire.

Many logo designs end up unintentionally delivering a bad message. This can appear as phallic shapes, offensive symbols, or inappropriate symbols. All without realizing that it happened.

Being highly immersed in the logo design project can make it very difficult to see issues. As a result, you need to have a process in place that will use fresh eyes to analyze the logo.

A good example of great subtle imagery use is the FedEx logo. Look at it and you will notice there is a white arrow between letters E and X.

Creating Inflexible Logos

The logo you create will be used in countless ways and be presented in numerous mediums. This means it needs to work very well online, in print, and at various sizes, like the favicon of a website. When the logo is very complicated (an error already presented below), it is not going to render that well if used at a smaller size. When the logo is very generic, it will not grab attention since it will not be that distinctive.

The best logo has to be future-proof. It has to grow together with the brand so it has to be useful in all possible scenarios.

Try to create design mockups for print and web assets. This lets you feel how the logo is translating. If problems are noticed, changes can be made.

Lack Of Logo Guidelines

Last but not least, this is a very common beginner logo design that should disappear. It is completely useless to create a wonderful logo and then to end up seeing the brand sabotage it because of a lack of logo guidelines.

Basically, all this means that you should not allow people to use the logo in any possible way. Brand integrity has to be preserved so comprehensive brand guidelines have to be created. And these guidelines have to be sent to anyone that would use the logo, including advertising partners.