Below, we go through 10 common logo design mistakes that you should avoid if you want to create a successful and professional logo.
Here are the most common reasons why many logos look amateurish:
- The business owner wanted to save money by designing the logo quickly themselves.
- A friend or relative who claims to know a little about graphic design does it as a favor. (“My Mother designed a bake sale flyer in 1992 so she can use MS Paint to make a Logo”)
- The wrong people are commissioned. (Local printers are not likely proficient in logo design, they are also often the last to know their limitations in this area.)
- The job was given to an online company that offers really cheap logos. (Really cheap? what could go wrong there…)
The top 3 fatal Logo Mistakes:
1) “It Expresses who I am” (This is not a Tattoo, it’s a Logo)
You can often spot this logo design sin a mile away; the cause is usually a designer’s enormous ego. If you have found a cool new font that you can’t wait to use in a design, well… don’t. Ask yourself if that font is truly appropriate for the business you’re designing for? For example, a great modern typographic font that you just love is not likely suited to a serious business such as a lawyer’s office.
2) “It tells everybody what I do” (It doesn’t and it can’t)
When printed in small sizes, a complex design will lose detail and in some cases will look like a smudge or, worse, a mistake. The more detail a logo has, the more information the viewer has to process. A logo should be memorable, and one of the best ways to make it memorable is to keep things simple. Look at the corporate identities of Nike, McDonald’s and Apple. Each company has a very simple icon that can easily be reproduced at any size.
3) “I love this Font because its Quirky like me!” (Logos are designed to be viewed by the world. If you like it s somewhat immaterial.)
When it comes to executing a logo, choosing the right font is the most important decision a designer can make. More often than not, a logo fails because of a poor font choice (our example shows the infamous Comic Sans).
Finding the perfect font for your design is all about matching the font to the style of the icon. But this can be tricky. If the match is too close, the icon and font will compete with each other for attention; if the complete opposite, then the viewer won’t know where to focus. The key is finding the right balance, somewhere in the middle. Every typeface has a personality. If the font you have chosen does not reflect the icon’s characteristics, then the whole message of the brand will misfire.
At the end of the day a professional is most likely to give you professional results.
