10 Logo Mistakes You Should Avoid

According to seasoned designers and marketers, having a professional designer make your logo design has a significant impact on any company. It makes sense when you think about it. A logo not only serves to physically represent a company, it also tells its story, communicates its values, and makes the company more recognizable to both new and returning clients.

A logo, in other words, serves as a visual expression of a brand's identity. It should come as no surprise that business owners and marketers frequently seek out the ideal logo design. Achieving perfection is challenging, takes time and experience and when done correctly has a high price.

Therefore, what should you strive to achieve when creating a visual representation for your business? What should you avoid having in your logo? Let's talk about it.

1. Not Doing Research

Researching the competition in your sector should be your first step. The best design practices for a high-quality logo for photography will differ from those for a logo for a construction company. You won't learn about industry standards or potential concepts for your designs if you don't observe what the market is doing. Viewing different logo designs can inspire original ideas for your logo, but beware! Falling in love with an existing logo is easier than you might think and hard to overcome.

According to Hinge's High Growth 2021 Study, companies that make decisions based on data and research grow more quickly and profitably than those that don't. Your logo should be created in such a way that it conveys your brand identity, your services, and your brand's target demographic. To do that, you must conduct in-depth market research before you even begin to develop your design. You must be familiar with your clientele to build a relationship with them through visual means.

Fundamentally, creating a logo is a communication task. How can visuals effectively convey the heart of a brand? To effectively achieve this, you must have a thorough knowledge of what you are trying to communicate—or not to communicate. Sometimes inexperienced designers or impatient brands will skip the brainstorming phase entirely. This inevitably leads to a weak logo that doesn't faithfully reflect or represent the brand.

2. Accidentally Offensive

I’m pretty sure you’re used to some rather well-known brands and their logos, but other brands become well-known because of the internet. Some say that “there is no such thing as bad publicity”, but I can argue the contrary. Take this as an example, see how Locum Property Management’s logo makes a rather unfortunate logo mistake. When your logo unintentionally displays something offensive, it's less about the finer points of effective marketing and more about a design error.

Never create a derogatory logo. Being edgy is one thing, but it is not worth the risk if it even slightly errs on the side of being offensive. You do not want to fall into this trap simply because you wanted to stand out. Any problematic content in your logo should be avoided at all costs since it will symbolize the ideals of your business.

You can decide whether the logo accurately depicts the word “locum” or does it say something else...

3. Illegibility

Your logo will be used in a wide range of contexts and formats. It ought to function properly in print, online, and in various sizes (e.g., your website favicon). Your logo won't translate effectively at lower sizes if it is particularly complex. And if it’s too generic, it won’t even be noticed. Future-proofing a logo means making it evolve with your brand and adapt to as many use cases as are required. Your logo needs to be responsive, it has to be legible even reduced to a half inch square ½”. Here’s an example:

Many “logo designers” stop working after they have what they believe to be the ideal logo. They finish the project with the customer without verifying whether it will work across all channels. That error might cost you money. Nowadays, most logos are presented in multiple formats. What would happen if, even if you are branding a wine firm that only prints their logo on the bottle labels, they decide to get it embroidered on a staff uniform in a year or two only to discover that the design is unusable? After just one year, they will either need to completely revamp or, worse still, forgo innovation and growth.

If something on your logo design is too small to read, it shouldn't be there. Either the communication serves a purpose or it shouldn't exist at all. Your core audience should be able to recognize every aspect of your brand. This is particularly crucial if you want to connect with an older audience.

4. Beware The Trends

It's critical to comprehend the visual vocabulary of any particular era. Trends, however, change over time. Classic logos remain relevant despite everything. You might reach a compromise based on your target market and your goods. If it makes sense for your brand, you lean toward current trends, but I’d strive for something timeless instead. Your logo should stand out and be distinctive. Nevertheless, industry norms or even current design trends can easily divert attention. Due to the homogenization of entire industries in recent years, this has become particularly true.

Keep in mind that you are attempting to resolve a communication issue. Every feature and an aesthetic decision made by your designers should be supported by your brand's objectives. Whether they are swooshes, glows, or bevels, trends come and go and eventually become clichés. By avoiding the newest design fads and methods, you may create an ageless and effective logo. The infamous "corporate swoosh," which is the greatest form of safety in logo design, is the largest cliché. It is recommended to entirely ignore logo design trends because it is your job as a logo designer to develop a distinctive identity for your client.

5. Not Knowing Your Audience

Let’s forget about your business for a second…forget how effective your logo is or does it have too many colors...

First, tell me something:

Who are your typical customers? Who is your ideal one? What excites them? What draws them in? What are their hobbies or passions? What makes them tick or upsets them? Where do they live? Any particular demographic?

These are all questions that should be answered in one way or another before even thinking about designing a logo or a brand identity. You might wonder what your target market has to do with creating your logo. Everything. Your logo should pique the interest of your target market and present you most favorably. Creating a flawless logo that fails to reach its target because it isn't directed at the right audience is a common mistake among “logo designers” that should be avoided at all costs.

Still doubtful?

Let's say you want to hire an agency to provide photography services for your wedding day. After hearing excellent things about this particular agency, you go online to research them and discover that their logo is a skull over a gravestone set against a pile of dead bodies. For a heavy metal band, that sounds amazing! But what are the odds that you will still choose them?

A logo that strikes its target perfectly is the Apple one. It’s simple, minimalist, and classy just like their brand portraits. The logo is simple and sufficiently styled to appeal to a high-end customer. It also portrays minimalist attributes that are seen throughout Apple’s branding and marketing strategy.

By conducting in-depth target audience research and comprehending who they are, you can prevent forgetting your audience during the logo design process. They should be kept in mind in every step of the logo design process to produce a design that will entice rather than repel potential customers.

6. Overly Complex Design

Complex logos can be difficult to remember and might be visually taxing. You're looking for something quick, light, and catchy. The more straightforward the design, the more will people remember your logo. Many even believe that a simple design might communicate more effectively with a person's subconscious. A simple but tasteful design will look elegant. Too much text or a large logo design that is confusing sends multiple meanings, and ultimately lacking clarity typically works against you. Not only that but complex logos usually don't transfer well when scaled down. This might be a serious branding problem down the road. After all, one of your logo’s main functions is to convey details about the organization to your clients. How would your ideal client understand and believe in your business if the message is unclear?

7. Too Many Colors

Your logo should look right in black & white first. Then and only then can you think about incorporating colors into your logo. Your logo doesn’t necessarily need to have colors to stand out to your audience. Adidas, Nike, and even Apple are some of the world's top brands and businesses that have no color in their main logo. Nonetheless, if you choose to have colors, pick those that are related to your brand. Having too many colors is an easy mistake to fix, but having unrelated colors around your brand and messaging is even greater.

We use colors as cues to help us navigate the world because they are inextricably related to our emotions. Consider color as a component of your brand's personality or nonverbal cues. In light of this, your colors must accurately represent your brand’s voice and identity. Using colors in your logo that don't show anywhere in your brand identity is one of the most detrimental blunders you can make. Selecting too many colors communicates that you're having trouble choosing a color scheme, which in turn makes your brand identity ambiguous and less likely to appeal to your target market. It is strongly advised to avoid doing this at all costs.

8. Using Stock Imagery or Clipart

I shouldn't even be saying this, but I will. I still see it way too often to ignore. Nothing will scream unprofessional, scammy, suspicious, unsafe, and insecure more than a stock image or clipart from a quick Google search. It is also illegal to appropriate intellectual property without proper purchase. Even still, how comfortable are you knowing that a hundred, possibly probably millions, have that same logo? Nothing will increase your chances to be overlooked more than having a clipart image as the face of your business.

Clipart is no longer just associated with the funny graphics included in the Windows 95 you got back in the day. These abstract symbols offered for sale on stock photo websites have assumed a new and undesirable role in the business industry and logo design. One of the most significant issues with these generalized solutions is that they’re meaningless and everyone can have the same “logo solution”. The overused, clichéd swoosh around a globe mark that has 15,000 sales on some stock sites for $5 should never be considered by anyone who calls themselves a professional.

Business owners who create their logos or amateur designers who are unaware of copyright restrictions can put any business at risk. Although it is not illegal to get stock vector images from websites like VectorStock, doing so could land you in legal trouble if you don’t do thorough licensing research before implementing anything. Using stock art violates the requirements for a logo's originality and exclusivity to the client under the licensing agreement. Just like discussed before, if you are using a stock vector image, there is a good chance that it is also being used by someone else somewhere else in the world, making it no longer distinctive.

9. No Visual Hierarchy

When you’re designing a logo, this is something that not everyone knows how to explain but everyone can subconsciously notice. There should be harmony between your fonts and a distinct relationship to one another that follows a logical and understandable design hierarchy. Take the Microsoft Visual Basic old logo, I'm pretty sure many of you don't know how to fix it, but you can all tell the harmony between elements is all wrong.

What is the first place the eye wants to go? What information do we get, and how is it presented to us? Is there a smooth transition between the primary typeface, secondary font, and logo mark? It all comes down to designing for the eye's innate tendencies when considering visual hierarchy. Before seeing small, low contrast, and dull-colored objects, we first see large, high contrast, and simple objects. Each element's size has a critical role in a logo's ability to be memorable and understandable.

10. Using too many fonts (or bad font pairing)

Successfully pairing fonts is one of the hardest things a graphic designer can do. To this end, is highly recommended to not use too many fonts in logo design. It can appear cheap, and garish, and visual discord is naturally generated when you use too many fonts. Your attempt at making a visual message should be well-formed and therefore must be cohesive. Both the design and the font should have a single language. Your logo's supplementary typefaces must logically support your primary font. Mismatched font combinations are typical logo design errors that should be avoided. The most memorable piece of information, such as the name of your business, should be described in the primary font. The purpose of the secondary font is to compliment the first when additional information is needed, like to explain what you do. The Hugo Boss logo does this perfectly, they use a primary classy & elegant serif font and contrast it with a more modern sans-serif font.

I advise using no more than two typefaces in logo designs. Any message is overcomplicated and confused when three, four, or even more fonts are used in the same design. Pick one, if you must, two. There is always room for innovation and ingenuity, but not when it comes to font selection.

I wouldn't use more than two typefaces in logo designs. My approach is to stick with a single main "brand font" that you may use throughout all business media. If the brand calls for a tagline, selecting a readable typeface that compliments it can be effective. Select typefaces that are balanced, readable at large sizes, and express the right message for the business. When in doubt, google it. Some websites can help you font pair and not go in blind.

"It's not what you say, it's how you say it," ever heard that before? This is the epitome of fonts. One of the most frequent errors we notice in logos is the improper use of typography in some way. Is not odd that many designers fail to choose an appropriate typeface for their logos especially if they haven’t done the necessary research. Typography is a key component of logo design; selecting the right typeface requires knowledge and experience. Even then, fashions shift, technology develops, and all of a sudden a font that looked stunning in print is no longer readable enough to be used for digital purposes. Because of this, it's wise to have a set of typographic guidelines in mind while creating logos for your clients.