With the power of the internet and more eyes looking than ever, it is important for a business to convey its unique message in a clear way. We will take you through the most common mistakes in logo design, which you should avoid if you want a successful and professional logo.
The logo is made by an amateur
A professional business needs to look professional. People who are just starting a business often invest a lot of time and money in furniture and equipment, and too little for a logo.
Here are the most common reasons why so many logos look amateurish:
- The business owner wants to save money by doing a quick logo design himself.
- A friend or relative who claims to have knowledge of graphic design makes the logo a service.
- Logo design has been awarded to a company that offers fast services at low prices.
The reasons listed above can cause disastrous results. If your logo looks amateurish, your business will look the same. A business owner needs to know where to look for good designers if he wants a good logo.
Here are the benefits of hiring a professional logo designer:
- The logo will look unique and memorable
- Your logo will not need a redesign for at least a few years
- The logo will look professional and neat
You rely on trends
Trends come fast, but go just as fast and become clichés. A well-made logo will last forever, and this can only be achieved if the latest design trends and tricks are ignored. If a logo is made according to a certain trend, then it will look outdated and banal.
You use bitmaps
When making a logo design, it is standard practice to use a vector program, such as Illustrator or Corel Draw. Vector graphics consist of mathematically accurate points, which provides a visual sequence in multiple sizes. Alternatively, of course, you can use raster programs like Photoshop. A bitmap image, or bitmap, consists of pixels.
The use of bitmaps for logos is not recommended as it may cause playback problems. Yes, Photoshop is capable of making very large logos, but you never know how big you will need the logo. If you zoom in on a bitmap image enough, it will look pixelated, making it unusable. Maintaining visual consistency, making sure that the logo looks the same in any size, is essential.
The main advantages of using vector graphics for logo design:
- The logo can be enlarged to any size without losing quality
- Making changes to the logo is easier
- It can be adapted to another type of media more easily than a bitmap image
Use of stock images
This mistake is often made by amateur designers or by people who want to make their own logo to save money. Downloading stock vector images from websites like VectorStock or Freepik is not a crime, but if you are not familiar with copyright and use the logo image, it can get you in trouble. The logo must be unique and original, and if you use a stock vector image, this rule is violated. There is also a high probability that someone somewhere in the world will use the same image, which in no way makes your logo unique and unique.
Too complicated design
What better analogy than a fingerprint photo? You can only notice the thin lines that form the fingerprints themselves if you look very closely. If you move your fingers away, these details are lost. The same goes for logos with a lot of details.
When an intricate logo is printed in a small size, its details are lost and it will look as if it is blurred or worse, wrong. The more detail a logo has, the more information the viewer must process. A logo should be memorable, and one of the best ways to do that is to make it simple. For example, we can give the logos of Nike, McDonald’s and Apple. All three companies have simple logos that can be easily reproduced in any size.
You rely on colors for the logo effect
This is a common mistake. Some designers can’t wait to add color to their design, and some rely entirely on it. Choosing a color should be the last thing in making a logo, so it’s best to start with just black and white.
Every business owner will need to use their logo in only one color at least once, so the designer must test whether this will affect the identity of the logo. If you use color to distinguish an element in the design, then the logo will look completely different monochrome.
Poor font choice
When it comes to logo design, choosing the right font is the most important decision a designer can make. In many cases, the logo does not work well precisely because an inappropriate font is chosen.
It is very important to find a font that matches the style of the icon. But this can be difficult. If they are too equal, the icon and the font will compete with each other for attention, if they are the complete opposite, then the viewer will not know where to focus. Each font has a character. If the font you choose does not reflect the characteristics of the icon, then the entire brand message will be lost.
Bad fonts are chosen because they are often not taken for granted. Some designers put the first font they come across.
Too many fonts
Uniformity and readability are important for good design, and too many font changes can distract and confuse the reader.
The use of a maximum of two fonts of different types is standard practice. Limiting fonts to this number significantly improves the quality of the logo design and helps the brand to be recognized.
Copying
This is the biggest mistake in logo design and, unfortunately, it is happening more and more often. As we said, the purpose of the logo is to represent a business. If it looks the same as someone else’s business logo, then someone has failed. Copying the work of others is not in anyone’s interest – neither the client nor the designer.
