Top 5 Mistakes in Logo Design
A company’s logo plays a crucial role in brand building and serves as the face of the brand. But far too many business owners underestimate the importance of logo design . They hire the cheapest designer they can find, slap their brand together and plough forward.
Ultimately, a cheap logo will make it challenging to build a strong brand and make your company forgettable .
If you’re starting to build your brand or revamping your existing brand, it’s essential to avoid these five mistakes in logo design.
1 – Relying on Trends
Just like any other industry, the design industry is often ruled by trends. It’s tempting to build your logo around these trends, but taking this approach dramatically reduces the longevity of your branding .
Trends come and go, but a classic logo design will withstand the test of time. Sure, your logo may be inspired by a current trend, but going all-in on a trend that may disappear tomorrow will do more harm than good for your brand.
Relying on trends is one of the biggest mistakes in logo design , but it’s one that’s easy to avoid by directly communicating to your designer that you want a logo that will still look good 5 or 10 years from now.
2 – Not Choosing a Professional Designer
Another major mistake that many brands make is hiring an amateur to create their logos. If your goal is to create a professional business, then you need a logo that reflects your professionalism.
If you offer SaaS development services, your audience will expect your logo and brand to be professional. An amateurish logo may give the impression that your brand isn’t trustworthy, credible or caring about its services.
An inexperienced logo designer can still provide a professional logo. Again, an amateur who doesn’t understand the primary design principals will likely deliver a poor-quality logo that will reflect poorly on your brand’s image .
3 – Using Stock Templates
A logo should be a reflection of its brand. Every brand is unique, so its logo should also be unique. Logos that contain stock images are risky from a legal and branding standpoint.
Stock images can be used by anyone who pays for the rights to use it. This means that elements in your logo may also be in another brand’s logo, and this can create confusion and dilute your branding efforts.
Furthermore, stock images may also bring up copyright issues. You may not know what service the designer used for the picture, the terms of the license or other details about the stock image.
Make sure that your logo does not contain stock images and only contains original content.
4 – Using Raster Images Instead of Vector Graphics
Logos should always be designed using vector graphics software. This is an industry-standard practise for logo design.
Vector graphics are comprised of mathematically precise points, and this ensures visual consistency no matter the size of the graphic.
With a vector logo, you can make it larger or smaller without compromising the quality of the image. This is important because it means that you can put your logo on giant billboards, brochures, signs and other marketing materials , and it will always look the same.
Raster graphics, on the other hand, are comprised of pixels. The problem with pixels is that they become distorted and pixelated as you enlarge the image.
It is crucial to make sure that your logo is created with vector graphics. This makes it easier to scale your image up or down without losing quality, but it also makes it easier to edit the logo later on down the road if you want to.
5 – Too Complex
When it comes to logo design, it’s better to keep things simple . Complex, highly detailed logos may look beautiful on the surface, but that detail will be lost when the logo is resized.
With a complicated logo, the viewer is forced to process more information. You want your logo to be memorable, and the best way to be memorable is to keep things simple.
A company’s logo is the face of the brand.
It’s essential not to take your logo decisions lightly.
Choose a professional graphic design agency , express your brand’s value and mission, and make sure that your logo is designed using the appropriate software.
