“Mistakes to Avoid in How to Design a Logo” written by Mike Marko.
Knowing how to design a logo may seem simple, but it really isn’t.
A great logo is more than just colors, fonts, and figures put together. It represents your business.
It creates the first impression most consumers have of your brand. It also helps establish your identity in the market.
This makes your logo very important. A good one makes your brand easier to recognize and remember. A bad one is not only forgettable but also conveys no information about you and your products/services.
Knowing how to design a logo is therefore part of your branding strategy as a business owner. You need to create a logo that stands out and helps people remember your brand.
Now there are many guides already that tell you how to design a logo. There are also as many pointers on the topic as there are industries. Covering them all would require a series of articles instead of just one.
So here, we’ll do something a little different. Instead of talking about what you should do, we’ll talk about what you shouldn’t.
That is, we’ll talk about the common mistakes you should avoid when designing a logo.
How to Design a Logo by Avoiding These 6 Mistakes!
There are no shortcuts in how to design a logo. As I more or less said earlier, making one is a process that requires careful thought, planning, and inventiveness.
But knowing the things you shouldn’t do can help a lot. It lets you steer clear of pitfalls from the start so you can focus only on ideas that may actually work.
To that end, I’ll give you some of the Dont’s of how to design a logo. Here are 6 of the worst mistakes to avoid.
1) Irrelevant Font Type
One of the most common mistakes in how to design a logo is selecting the wrong font type.
There are many fonts to choose from… and you should choose wisely. Don’t choose a font that you think looks cute, but one that fits your company.
Choosing a font is one of the most important steps in the process of how to design a logo. More than a few designers have likened it the choosing an outfit for a social event.
Think about what you convey with your outfits. What does your current outfit say about you? Is it the outfit you would wear to, say, a formal party? What about if you were going to a job interview?
Just as different ensembles say different things, different fonts convey different impressions. Some fonts practically scream “sci-fi” or “techie”, while others indicate “classic elegance” instead.
Try to match your font with your business. Think about the business’s identity and attributes.
For example, if you’re in the cupcake business, never use spooky fonts for a cute cupcake logo. In the same vein, don’t use a formal serif font if your business is running a playzone for children.
2) Unscalable Logo Designs
In learning how to design a logo, always check where the logo will be used and how it will appear.
Is it going to be used on a billboard? Or is it going to be used on a business card?
It’s important to consider where you will use the logos. That’s because creating one that can’t be scaled and then printing it out on small items like business cards will lead to blurred images.
As much as possible, avoid designing logos with too many complicated little details. They don’t scale very well and aren’t easy to reproduce.
If you scale down a logo design with lots of tiny details, it tends to become unrecognizable. The details might even end up disappearing as well.
Besides, having too many figures in a design can be distracting. It can fragment the message your logo is trying to send. Any designer will tell you that’s not how to design a logo.
Good logos are those that hold meaningful but minimal details. You should always aim for simplicity and scalability in logos.
Simplicity doesn’t only make the logo easy to remember, but it also makes the logo flexible in size. This gives your logo better chances to work on different platforms without losing parts of its image and concept.
For example, a scalable logo will be as recognizable in a Facebook profile photo as it is on a 30-foot billboard. That’s because it can be resized to be larger or smaller without losing vital parts of its identity.
3) Multicolored and 3D Logos
Don’t go for a multicolored and 3D logo. It can be tempting because they look attractive.
But trust me, these kinds of logos will not work.
Remembering these types of logos can be really hard. Not to mention they can also be difficult to reproduce in grayscale.
Multicolored and 3D logos tend to rely too much on their colors and details. Know that a good logo must be recognizable in either colored or black and white form.
Although colors are one of the important features of a logo design, it should never be the primary foundation of the design. If it is, it loses much of its value the moment it’s reproduced in black and white.
4) Too Much Text
This is a common mistake people make in how to design a logo. They put together a nice, clean image or symbol to represent their brand… then ruin it by surrounding it in a sea of text.
You need to keep the amount of text trim when you’re learning how to design a logo. Logo text is supposed to be straightforward and concise.
The mistake most people make is trying to convey more than they can really fit in the logo. For example, they try to fit even their business tagline in there.
However, it’s not really possible for most businesses. It overwhelms the image and also makes it harder to scale.
A logo that has too much text on it can never be considered good. Keep your objectives in mind — this is all about how to design a logo, not how to create a poster.
5) Designing a Logo Using Stock Images
Another common mistake many designers make is using stock images for the logos. Designing a logo with stock images is a little bit like cheating.
It’s easy and fast, but uninspired and definitely unoriginal. If you didn’t create the image on your own, don’t use it.
The point of a logo is to provide a unique representation of a company. Once something shows up on the Internet as stock content, there’s clearly no guarantee that it won’t be used by others.
So there’s a chance your logo will show up in another business’s branding material.
A duplicate image can be interpreted as a reflection of another image or product. And that’s not a good way to advertise your brand and business.
Always bear in mind that a good logo should have a characteristic that makes people look at it. Uniqueness is a part of that characteristic.
Worn-out stock images that people have seen in a dozen other places already aren’t even worth a glance.
So don’t be a cliche when you’re learning how to design a logo. Take the time to come up with an original idea and design.
Originality is the key to how to design a logo. Never copy or use images that are not yours because they can’t convey the unique character of your brand.
6) Aesthetically-Challenged
Learning how to design a logo is always partly about learning to produce something beautiful. You want to learn how to design a logo that people enjoy seeing.
You would never want your work to be categorized as an ugly logo. If it’s ugly enough, people will actually try to keep it out of sight.
If a logo doesn’t look good aesthetically, it can have a negative effect on the company. Keep in mind that the quality of your logo has an impact on people’s perception of your company, products, and services.
It’s not hard for them to conclude that an ugly logo belongs to an ugly company. That’s not a conclusion you want your customers to make.
Final Thoughts on Mistakes to Avoid in How to Design a Logo
Figuring out how to design a logo is not easy. Designing a logo requires detailed work, research, and analysis.
It also requires you to avoid certain things.
I’ve listed 6 of those in this article. If you want to know how to design a logo, you should keep them in mind so you can avoid them.
To reiterate, you need to avoid using irrelevant or inappropriate font styles. Using the wrong font can muddle the image you’re trying to present to consumers because different fonts present different impressions.
You also need to avoid making logos that are unscalable. Unscalable designs aren’t just hard to reproduce but also tend to be cluttered.
Don’t bother trying to learn how to design a logo in multicolored 3D either. These tend to be too detailed or complex for easy reproduction.
Avoid making a logo that swims in a mound of text because it can overwhelm the rest of the image. Avoid using stock images for your logos because they suggest that your business isn’t unique.
Finally, don’t make a logo that’s aesthetically unpleasant. Beautiful logos get more admirers — and attention. Ugly ones tend to suggest to people that your business itself is ugly too.
If you want to share your thoughts with us on how to design a logo, you can leave them in the comments below.
Now that you have a logo, you are ready to start to ramp up your efforts to implement the Pervasive Presence™ method.
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Author: Mike Marko
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