8 Common logo design mistakes to avoid

The logo can be referred as a symbol or a small design that is adopted by an organization or business for identifying its product. When you see Colonel Sanders picture holding a chicken bucket, you know that you are coming to KFC. A logo can tell the world who you are and it can be a business logo, website logo or a company logo. Logo design is an important part of graphic design and you can find several graphic design tools on the market for designing the logo. So when you start design logo, you may think that what are the things to be considered are or what are the things that should be avoided while designing. Here is a list of 8 common mistakes to be avoided for designing a compelling logo.

1. Typography

It’s very important for you to the know typography as it breaks or makes a logo design. A logo for anything should be kept simple as far as possible while still showing the desired message and for this to take place; you have to consider all aspects of typography of design. Do not use way too many fonts or weights. Also, using unsuitable fonts can make your design poor. You should pay attention to sizing, kerning and spacing and must ensure that you have chosen the suitable fonts for the logo.

2. Poor font choice

As told above, use of suitable fonts is really important. The decision to choose right fonts can take the time as long as getting logo design ideas and it must not be done in a hurry. You should spend some time to look out for several font options that can be used in your logo. You can modify a font, create your own or purchase one as per your requirement. One more thing to be considered is how the fonts used in the logo could also be used across brand identity with other imagery and fonts.

3. Too many details, much complex

It doesn’t matter that whether you are designing the logo for company or logo for business, you want that people can easily remember the brand by looking at the logo. Just take a look around, you will see logos of many big companies and that can be golden arches of MacDonald or a bite taken apple of apple’s company. What common thing about their logo you will find is that they are all simple without much detail. Simple logos are much easier to remember and people can easily recognize it. One of the main reasons for not using too many details is that at some point the logo needs to be scaled to small sizes and at that point logos that have much more details would be unrecognizable and details may disappear. So try to keep it simple without adding too much detail.

4. Use of raster image

Raster graphics or images are the ones that rely on resolution and pixels. Raster image which is made out of pixels cannot be scaled to another size that means when logos are made larger, they become unusable. Instead, we should make use of vector images which don’t rely on pixels and can be scaled to any size or medium. Vector image maintains consistency in any size so it is should be used while designing logos. One popular tool that can be used to design logo using raster image is Adobe Illustrator.

5. Use of visual cliché

So when we think of how to represent ideas in an image, the light bulb comes to our mind. Similarly, for discussion, speech bubble comes to our thinking. These are the most common thinking that comes to our mind when brainstorming and due to this should be discarded. How our design is going to look unique if everyone is using the same ideas. Your logo design should be unique and should stand out from other logos so that it becomes a unique identity of the brand.

6. Copy, copy and copy

What has become a trend of these days is that for easing the work, graphic designers simply copy others designs, ideas and modify it, make colors swap or a quick mirror and calls it of their own ideas. The trend to copy is more common these days and not only this is unethical, illegal but you may get caught for stealing others ideas. The main point of the logo is to represent the brand and it must be unique so that people can easily identify the brand by looking at its logo. If the logo of a company is unoriginal then people get confused and it gets unnoticed. Also, don’t make use of clip or stock art as they are used by most of the people.

7. Perfection

Every minor detail of the logo should be perfect. Curves have to be smooth and without overlap. Node points should be at the minimum and if the logo is symmetrical, it should be perfect. Every small detail of the logo matters. For example, imagine a situation where your client has to put the logo on the side of the vehicle. If the logo you designed has mistakes then these will be clearly seen. So everything needs to be perfectly done.

8. Monogram

One of the common mistakes most of the amateur designers make when they have to design logo is that they tend to create a monogram out of the business or company’s name. Even though it may look a smarter way to create the logo but it’s difficult to build credibility and deliver the desired message. You can use this solution for designing logos but don’t depend totally on it if you can create your own unique way. Another point to add, don’t just make an acronym out of organization’s name. You may have seen acronym logos of many high profile companies such as HP, IBM etc. But the truth is that they were not acronym logos at first. They became acronym later after years of popularity.

The tips and mistakes to be avoided mentioned above can help the logo design to stand out and makes the logo attractive and compelling. But if you want to someone else or hire a designer to create a custom logo for your business or company or whatever it is then please remember DesignPac. We at DesignPac will create your desired logo according to your creative briefs at an affordable price. You can see our creative works by visiting our portfolio page.