Creating a logo for your company brand? Some of these branding blunders could be worth avoiding when designing your logo. Below are just five mistakes to avoid.
Not researching into competitor brands
It’s worth looking into which logos you competitors are using. You may notice that there are certain ideas in your industry that are popular - perhaps for a reason. It could also help you to find a way of distinguishing your logo so that your brand doesn’t end up blending in with that of competitors.
It’s also important that your logo doesn’t look too similar to competitors - especially those who have trademarked their logo. You don’t want to have a lawsuit made against you because your logo is too similar.
Using inappropriate colors
Colors can be an important aspect of a brand. Certain colors have connotations and effects on our mood. It’s important that you don’t use inappropriate colors to give off the wrong impression.
Red for instance is bold, youthful and energizing - it’s used in logos by brands like Coca-Cola, Lego and Nintendo for this reason. Blue on the other hand is better for communicating calmness and credibility - it’s used by many tech and finance brands for this reason such as Dell, IBM and WordPress. With this in mind, when creating a logo for an IT security firm, you may want to stay away from red and consider blue.
It’s also important when using two colors to make sure that they don’t clash. This could make your logo unreadable.
Using inappropriate fonts
There’s a lot to consider when choosing a font. Generally speaking, you always want to go for something chunky and salient so that your font is readable. A thin logo font with lots of serifs could make your logo difficult to read.
Like colors, certain fonts can project certain connotations, which are worth considering. For instance, consider the hard and chunky font of the Lowe’s logo with the soft and bubbly Barbie logo - the former gives off a sense of toughness and practicality while the latter give off a sense of softness and playfulness. If you’re launching your own home DIY store, you probably don’t want to go for something soft and bubbly.
Overlooking where you’ll print it
Where you plan to print your logo can have a big impact on the salience. Consider the size and the material you’ll be printing on/medium you’ll be printing with.
When printing a large logo onto a cotton t-shirt, you have more freedom when it comes to colors and details. However, a small embossed logo on a zipper may not be able to be as detailed and won’t be able to incorporate color. Certain printing techniques may allow you to create a more prominent logo on certain backgrounds. Foil stamping services as found at https://universalengraving.com/foil-stamping-dies/ for instance could be worth considering when printing on a black matte background. A matte black meanwhile may be better against a silver background.
Not knowing when to rebrand
Some logos can end up being used forever, but for others a rebrand is sometimes necessary. If your logo is no longer fitting of the times, you may want to consider rebranding it. Logo trends have changed drastically over the last few decades - while detailed and more colorful logos were popular in the 80s and 90s, many companies now favour a more minimal approach. Just take a look at Apple’s logo here at https://logaster.com/blog/apple-logo/, which has evolved from a rainbow-colored apple to a matte grey apple.
