Mistakes to avoid when designing your logo

If it is done properly, logo design involves many hours of painstaking work, from concept and ideas to proofs and the final product, which is instantly recognisable and a perfect representation of a company, its industry, and its personality. It is thus easy to make some mistakes when designing a logo for your company.

© Marcos Calvo Mesa – 123RF.com

Here are five common mistakes you should avoid:

1. Using your entire budget on equipment, décor, and other items, but neglecting your logo. If you have not set aside budget to have your logo professionally designed, you are at risk of having your amateur logo likened to the quality of your business.
2. Not matching logo and font. A logo and its font should match in style, but if they are too alike or too different, the viewer will not know where to look. It is important that the font and logo complement each other.
3. Font overload. Using more than two fonts in a single logo or design confuses the viewer when the idea should be that your logo is legible, coherent, and immediately recognisable.
4. A logo that is too complicated. Remember that your logo will be used everywhere - business stationery, the web, business cards - and when it is resized for smaller uses it will lose every detail that made it memorable in the first place. Keep it simple and striking.
5. Being fashionable. Your business is unlike anyone else's, right? That means the logo should look unlike anything out there already. Concentrate on making your logo represent your company's unique identity rather than using trends or copying someone else's.