What makes a bad logo design?

Logos are pretty important to us here at The Printed Bag Shop. We print them on to beautiful bespoke bags for you all day long, and they’re often the core way that a brand puts across it’s personality to the world. If your logo looks good, we can make you look even better.

So, we’ve explored logo design a lot right here on this blog. There was our piece on the 5 principles of effective logo design, a look at the difference between brand, logo and identity, and 10 top tips on what makes a good logo.

But after all that talk about creating good logos, we wondered – how do you spot a bad one? And how can you know whether the designer creating them is worth their salt?

Here’s some quickfire points on what makes a bad logo design:

1. It contains stock images

It’s easy to underestimate the importance of your logo, especially if you don’t have a huge amount of budget to spend, and to think that as long as you’ve got some kind of image that’s relevant to your business, that you’re okay. Unfortunately, we couldn’t disagree more!

Using stock vector graphics in your logo not only shows lack of imagination (which your customers will undoubtedly pick up on), but could actually put your logo and your business at risk. It’s most likely that the license agreement of the image being used doesn’t cover the picture being used as part of a logo, which could come back to haunt you – and, your logo won’t be unique or original, which could lead to similar ones being used by another company.

2. It’s designed to suit your taste rather than your audience’s

This is one of the trickiest parts of not only designing a logo, but creating a whole brand. your target audience are the most important people, and you need to appeal to them – and whilst it’s likely that your company reflects yourself in a lot of ways, you need to make sure that when you design your logo, you design something that they like and can relate to, rather than basing it purely on what you think looks good.

Your logo should be a reflection of the company and it’s values as a whole, not just of the personal taste of the MD or whomever is overseeing the design.

There is a fine line between being unique and being market appropriate – try researching into others in the market and combining their approach with your brand’s personality.

3. It’s just too complicated

The key to a successful logo? Being memorable – and one of the best ways to make your logo memorable is to keep it simple. Think Nike, Apple, McDonalds – some of the most iconic logos in the world are also some of the simplest.

Plus, if your logo involves a highly detailed design with lots of small elements, chances are it won’t scale too well if printed or viewed in different sizes, particularly if made smaller. The usage of too many fonts can also have a negative impact – choose one, two at a push (that are appropriate for your target audience) and stick to them.

The more detailed something is, the longer it takes people to process it, and the harder it is for them to remember. In the case of logos, less is more.

4. Relying on colour

Colour is such an important part of a logo that it can be an easy trap to fall into to base your design around colour entirely – but this can be a big mistake. Though colour should definitely not be overlooked, your logo should not rely on it. If your logo ever needs to be printed or shown in black and white, then it’s highly likely that the identity of the design will be lost and it could even end up looking lie someone else’s.

Try designing your logo in black and white first, so you can make sure the originality comes from the design itself rather than just the use of colour.

We hope these logo tips were handy!

If you’re followed our marvellous advice and are ready to showcase your logo to the world, get in touch with our sales team to ask about our range of beautiful bespoke printed bags and packaging. You can call 0191 268 7555, or email sales@theprintedbagshop.co.uk to request a quote today!