Your logo design sets the tone for your whole company. The design of your logo is the first impression potential customers have of your business. Whether you have a storefront or just a business card and a website, your logo design will speak volumes about you. What kind of first impression do you want to make on new potential customers? Do you want to be seen as professional, detail orientated, up-to-date, and creative or does your logo tell your customers that you are lazy, cheap, outdated, and uninterested? A good logo design should be timeless. It should represent your passion for the business and tell your customers that you are worth their time and money. A cheap, unprofessional, poorly-designed logo does just the opposite.
Here are four common logo design mistakes that will tell your customers to run away:
1. CLIP ART
Never use clip art even if it is from a professional or purchased from a stock clip art website. The general rule of thumb is that you don’t want your logo cluttered by too much design. Clip art calls out to the world that you are mediocre, cheap, and completely void of original ideas. Would you want to do business with someone like that?
2. MULTIPLE FONTS
It is easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of font choices available to you when you are designing your logo. It can be hard to pick the right font, but the worst mistake you can make in terms of font selection for your logo is using more than one font. Not only is it distracting, but it tells your customers that you are indecisive, cluttered, and unorganized.
3. SCRIPT FONTS
A “script font” is a font that attempts to mimic handwriting. It is generally in cursive or italic and is characterized by curvy lines. There are two problems with script fonts:
a) They are extremely hard to read.
b) They are often confused with elegance. In reality, they look outdated, unprofessional, and fake.
A good logo design will use a font that is straight-lined, crisp and clean.
4. UNNECESSARY DESIGN AND CLUTTER
The final mistake that is often seen in logo design is the thought that more is better. There is a real tendency to believe that complex logos with multiple design elements will impress. This is anything but true. The old rule that less is more definitely applies here. A good rule is to look at your logo and remove any element that does not represent your business. Don’t feel the need to use graphical elements. Some of the best logos only use font to tell their stories. Any other design elements must be used with caution and only added if they represent your actual business. For example, don’t add flowers to your bakery’s logo simply because you like flowers. Flowers don’t represent what you do and simply confuse and clutter the message that your logo should get across.
If your logo makes any of these mistakes, don’t feel bad. They are the most common mistakes, but that does not mean that they should be left uncorrected. Remember that your logo will set the foundation for what your customers expect from you. A good logo design tells your story and captures people’s attention. You want a logo that instantly tells people what you do and engages your customers by standing out in a sea of bad logo design. It is not hard to stand out in a world where clip art is king, but you must be willing to think outside the box. And, you must realize that good design represents who you are as a company. What are you telling the world with your logo?
