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We see logos all the time. Every product has a logo on it. The logos are on the food we buy, the shirts we wear, and the cars we drive. Even where we live, there are logos in signs and marquees.
One expert estimates that in total, we come across about 5,000 logos in one day. Because of this, when it comes to logo design, it’s important to carefully avoid logo design mistakes that can hurt your brand.
We’re all very familiar with the logos of big companies like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola. They are on all our stuff! Some people think we should pay more attention to these logos. I get why suggest this – because logos decide how we look, what we eat, and influence our buying decisions.
This article will give you five design mistakes that you should avoid when creating your logo.
When designing your logo, you need to keep in mind that it should be memorable and represent your company.
The following five logo design mistakes can negatively affect your company.
1. Not Doing Proper Research
Logo design mistakes are common. Even the best logo designers will make mistakes. However, research provides the foundation for the logo design process. Research helps get a clear understanding of the company’s vision and goals.
When researching, don’t rely solely on the company’s website or other literature. Instead, get a clear understanding of the company’s current and potential customers.
Researchers need to make several trips to place, observe, and interview. Visit the company’s competitors and review the products and services they offer. If the company has a website, visit it and examine the content, layout, and overall feel of the website.
The research process also helps designers understand the company’s culture, values, and mission. Research also helps you identify the company’s strengths and weaknesses. It also helps to define the company’s target audience.
After the design is complete, designers present the logo to the company’s management. From there, the company’s management approves or rejects the logo. If approved branding collateral assets come into play.
2. Forgetting Your Customer
Your brand is the experience people have with your brand. It’s the products you sell, and the customer service you provide. A logo is one small and important part of your brand.
That logo needs to tell your brand story. And that story needs to focus on your customer. While it should represent your company, it should also be customer-friendly. Therefore, when designing your logo, you have to keep in mind what your customers will think of when they look at it.
For example, when Starbucks was coming up with their logo design, they made sure to remember their customer. They created their logo to be memorable by including their “Starbucks” name in the logo.
If your goal is to create one that your customers will remember, then, you need to remember your customers as well.
3. Not Paying Attention to Color and Font
Colors and fonts may not seem like a big deal, but they play a huge role in how people perceive your logo.
When designing your logo, it’s important to first identify your company’s target audience. This group of people will represent your logo, so you need to make sure your logo appeals to them.
For example, if your company is targeting an audience of millennials, don’t design your logo in a style that appeals to baby boomers. Also, avoid using colors that clash with your logo’s design.
But what makes an effective logo?
It’s tempting to think that logos have just one purpose — to identify a company or product. But it goes far beyond that.
A logo is part of your company’s visual identity, and it can convey several aspects of your brand. It can also make people feel a certain way.
For that reason, it’s important that you convey your company’s personality and how your customers should view your brand. You can achieve this by choosing the right fonts and colors for your design.
But with so many competing brands to choose from, you need your logo to stand out.
4. Trying to communicate too much with your logo
When you’re trying to communicate too much with your logo, you risk confusing people. If you spell things out in your logo, then people will have to puzzle over what the logo means. People are more likely to read your logo as meaning something if they can’t understand it.
But with so many businesses competing for attention. Not to mention so many businesses with logos that just don’t evoke the right feeling. It’s crucial that your logo stands out from the crowd.
Logos communicate so much with so little. A logo often ends up communicating more than you want it to because logos are messages in themselves. They communicate the qualities that the creators wanted to communicate.
Think of a logo as an advertisement. If the product is good, the ad won’t be very long. If the product is bad, the ad will be very long. But ads are always fairly economical because if you advertise too much, people will stop listening.
Logos are no different. They are messages, and they usually have to be short. That’s what makes them so economical.
Logos are advertisements, and like all advertisements, they usually have to sell more than one thing. They are like billboards, where the message has to be both clear and enticing. Logos have to communicate both quality and value.
Sometimes they’re like cereal boxes, where there’s plenty of space for lots of messages. But more often they’re like logos, where space is short.
Don’t try to make a logo say more than it has to. It will only confuse people.
5. Looking Like Your Competitors
Logos are distinctive. They induce an immediate response: “That is the logo of so-and-so.” Logos can represent a company, a product, or an idea, but in every case, they must be immediately recognizable.
Because a logo is distinctive, it is tempting to design it to look like someone else’s. You wouldn’t want someone to be unable to recognize your logo. But there is another risk in the copying: if you copy, you run the risk of looking like someone else.
A good logo looks nothing like anyone else’s. Logos that look more like someone else’s are less likely to create that immediate response. To get it right, you must avoid looking like your competition.
Important Takeaways
Logos play a hugely important role in your branding efforts. They are the symbolic representation of your company that customers see and remember. Avoiding these 5 logo design mistakes will take you a long way in designing a great logo.
Logotypes fall into two main categories: wordmarks and icons. Wordmark logos use text to represent a company, while icon logos use symbols.
While wordmark logos are the most familiar, icons have their advantages. They are typically more legible at small sizes and work well for websites with limited space. Icons are also easy to remember. The Nike Swoosh, for example — tends to convey a more symbolic message than words.
But icons present their own challenges. Because images are more distinct to our brains than words, it can be difficult to convey exactly what you mean with a logo that only uses symbols.
If your goal is to create a mark that conveys a message quickly and easily, a wordmark may be the way to go. But if you’re looking to create a logo with symbolic meaning, an icon can be a better choice.
