6 common mistakes that deprive brands of getting popularity and profit
Which 6 mistakes should brands avoid, to make a recognizable and memorable logo, that can bring popularity and profit?
Imagine that you created a logo for your company. A designer drew images: everything looks fine. You placed the logo on your website, on social networks, and on street banners. But something goes wrong: the customers are not getting more loyal and often confuse your company with similar ones, and even, by mistake turn to them instead of you.
I am Svetlana Kurako – the head of TrueArtDesign design studio. In this article, I will tell you which 6 mistakes brands should avoid, to make a logo accomplish its main goal and bring popularity and profit.
Unfortunately, only a few designers understand the connection between design and marketing. This leads to the creation of beautiful (or not so:)) logos that do not fulfill their tasks. That is why company leaders need to keep their finger on the pulse.
To draw a picture instead of a symbol
A lot of designers do not realize that a logo is a company’s symbol. If it has a lot of objects and details, it is difficult to identify it from a distance.
That is why, when you are going to work with designers, make sure there are not any logos with excessive details in their portfolios. Otherwise, instead of a simple and recognizable symbol, you will get a painting (most often – very beautiful, but at the same time very harmful to your business), which takes a long time to look at it before you can catch the essence.
Surely, they are too small. Only those logos were visible which had a clear symbol. The others transformed into a blurred color (or even colorless) spot.
Therefore, it is important for a logo to be quickly recognizable – even from a distance when it is placed on a street billboard – it should be visible from cars passing by.
In our design studio we create companies’ symbols using the vector format,
To use inappropriate symbols
Which one do you think will work better?
- Choosing any beautiful symbol, which somehow is suitable for your project. For example, after studying the market, pick an image or an icon according to your business field.
- Or creating a symbol in a way that the key idea of your project would be understandable from the first glance. Let’s imagine that your barbershop is the only one where they do a laser haircut – take the laser as a base, and make it visible in the logo.
Obviously, only the second option guarantees that your company will not be confused with other players in the market niche.
A good example is the NASA company logo (surely, it can hardly be called minimalistic, it is an old, absolutely not laconic version. But they still have it because people are used to it. The company also has a new, more laconic version of the logo).
Take a look for yourself.
This is a single example when symbols help to reflect the idea of the project. NASA created a more laconic version of the logo because all the leading brands nowadays strive for minimalism. And here, we are smoothly going to the next common mistake.👇
Forget about minimalism
- The simplicity, as Leonardo Da Vinci put it, is not only the ultimate sophistication but also the most popular trend in commercial design nowadays.
- Those, who have little experience in logo creating, can think that stylish design is when beautiful details are abundant. But this approach will ruffle a few feathers on professional designers.
- In commercial art – the more minimalistic, the better. When you set a task for designers, be sure that they got you well: the idea is to simplify to the maximum level. And after that, to make the result even simpler.
- The experience of the market leaders proved: it looks like there is no limit to simplifying things. Take a look at the “Nestle” company logo: they have been simplifying it over the years, even though every time it seems that nothing else can be done for it to look more plain.
The brand flirted with fonts, removed the “excessive” bird from the logo, and at each step made the picture look more plain.
To simplify at the expense of uniqueness
Imagine that you create a logo for your coffee shop. And you have got two options: one of them is correct, the another is not.
❌ You decided not to rack your brain about the uniqueness and have chosen a coffee grain as a symbol. It turns out that this symbol is used by every second company in the market niche. It resulted in customers confusing your coffee shop with hundreds of others: cafés, coffee factories, etc.
✅You decided to convey your uniqueness. For example, you have got an exclusive contract with a Brazilian coffee company. So you can paint the logo in colors of the Brazilian flag. As a result, customers will remember you better: “Yeah, their specialty is Brazilian coffee. I would like some Brazilian – I’ll go to them”.
To use trendy (contemporary) styles
How is it possible to understand what a design style is on trend?
- At least, the style is laconic and big companies all around the world tend to use it.
- Surely, you realize, how important it is for a modern and popular company to impress customers. For this purpose, designers should draw the logo using a trendy style.
- For example, the most suitable styles for logos are “Line Art” and “Flat”. Images drawn in these styles consist of flat shapes and lines.
The largest companies follow trends and apply the “Line Art” and “Flat” styles.
- Fonts also should be trendy if you want the logo to work. The main thing here is for the font to be easily readable because customers have no time to read – it is necessary to catch them immediately.
- But be careful when you pick trendy fonts for your project. I myself have seen how it can be harmful. Recently, there appeared a new fashion font and everyone started using it following the aim just to be in trend. I have seen this font at least on 7-8 different websites and projects.
- What's the catch? The point is that the font was not suitable for those projects at all. It was obvious that designers just applied what was trendy. And did not think about how much the font was suitable for the certain project.
- That is why you should not mindlessly use everything what is fashionable if you want to attract people to your particular brand.
How to follow trends?
Not to pay attention to the market niche and the target audience
Just suppose you are the owner of a financial company and a logo is being created for you. Firstly, you should define what emotions you would like to trigger in your clients.
For a financial company, customers’ emotions should be something like:
- trust
- a sense of reliability
- confidence in expertise
- confidence in honesty
To trigger all those emotions, a font in grotesque style and a laconic calm design will suit perfectly well. If on a logo like this we add, for example, a picture with a rose bouquet, customers will not appreciate such a joke about the style.
Therefore, every time, before creating a logo, think about a market niche and a group of customers this logo is aimed at.
A perfect example is the MTV Channel logo. It exploits the “gang” style which is appealing to the youth. So far, the image has not been beaten, and the logo is still considered the most recognizable in the 21st century.
MTV applies the “gang” font appealing to the youth.
When you have learned how to avoid those 6 mistakes in logo creating, your company will be easily recognizable among thousands of others, even in the most completive market niche.
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