Bad logos aren’t always obviously bad.

They can be professionally drawn, technically competent and perfectly presentable at first glance. The problems often become apparent when you look at what the logo is actually trying to do.

Perhaps there are too many elements fighting for attention. Maybe the symbol is so obvious that it could belong to almost any business in the same industry. The company name might become unreadable at smaller sizes, or the whole thing relies on gradients, shadows and other effects to make it interesting.

Individually, these can seem like relatively small decisions. Together, they can produce a logo that’s difficult to recognise, difficult to use and even harder to remember.

As I’ve written before, your logo is the hardest-working part of your brand. It might appear on your website, stationery, signage, social media, vehicles, clothing, advertising and practically everywhere else your business does.

So it needs to work.

Here are some of the most common logo design mistakes to avoid, and more importantly, how to recognise them.

1. Trying to fit the entire business into the logo

This is probably one of the most common problems in small-business logo design.

You start with the company name.

Then add a symbol to show what the business does.

Then a line explaining the services.

Perhaps a strapline underneath.

Maybe an established date.

And suddenly what started as a logo has become a very small advert.

Your logo doesn’t need to explain your entire business.

A chiller company doesn’t automatically need a snowflake. A cleaning business doesn’t require a water feature. A marine company doesn’t necessarily need a boat. A builder doesn’t have to use a roofline.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of those ideas. The problem is assuming that because they’re relevant, they automatically make a good logo.

Your logo is an identifier, not an instruction manual.

Your website and marketing can explain what you do. The logo needs to give people something distinctive to recognise and associate with the business.

That’s an important distinction in logo & brand identity design: communicating the character of a business doesn’t mean illustrating everything it does.

2. Reaching for the most obvious industry symbol

Search online for logos within almost any industry and patterns quickly emerge.

Builders have roofs.

Dentists have teeth.

Photographers have cameras.

Electricians have lightning bolts.

Accountants have graphs.

Refrigeration companies have snowflakes.

They’re visual shorthand, and that’s precisely the problem.

If the first idea that occurs to you also occurs to practically everybody else designing a logo for that industry, it’s unlikely to help distinguish one business from another.

This doesn’t mean obvious imagery can never work. A familiar symbol handled in an unusual or particularly clever way can still create something distinctive.

But the obvious idea should be the beginning of the thought process, not necessarily the end of it.

When researching a new identity, looking at competitors isn’t just about discovering what works. It’s also about seeing what’s already been done to death.

3. Forcing the company initials into a symbol

Initials can make excellent logos.

They can also lead designers down some peculiar roads.

Letters get overlapped, stretched, cut apart, rotated and joined together until three perfectly innocent initials have been transformed into something requiring several seconds of concentrated study.

There’s nothing wrong with a monogram. Some of the world’s most recognisable identities are built around initials.

But there’s an important question to ask:

Does combining these letters actually create something distinctive, or are we combining them simply because we can?

If the result makes the company name harder to recognise, the cleverness isn’t achieving much.

A monogram should feel intentional rather than like several letters have been involved in a minor traffic accident.

4. Adding a swoosh because there’s an empty space

Ah, the swoosh.

Curves, rings, arcs and sweeping lines have found their way underneath, around and through an extraordinary number of company logos.

Sometimes they’re an integral part of the idea.

Sometimes they appear to exist because there was a bit of empty space at the bottom.

Decorative elements can give a logo movement or help connect different parts of a design, but they should have a reason for being there.

Otherwise they make the logo physically larger, complicate its shape and introduce another visual element for the viewer to process without actually making the identity more distinctive.

This applies to more than swooshes.

Lines, circles, stars, boxes and other decorative devices can gradually accumulate because each one appears to solve a small visual problem.

Often the better solution is subtraction.

Try removing the element.

If the logo immediately becomes clearer and loses nothing important, you’ve probably answered the question of whether it was needed.

5. Making everything compete for attention

A logo might contain a symbol, initials, company name and descriptor without necessarily becoming complicated.

The problem begins when they’re all shouting at the same volume.

Good design creates visual hierarchy.

Something should normally be noticed first, something second and, if there’s supporting information, that comes afterwards.

When every element is large, bold, brightly coloured or otherwise emphasised, the eye doesn’t know where to begin.

This is particularly common when a logo has evolved through a series of additions:

“Can we make the initials bigger?”

“Can the company name stand out more?”

“The strapline needs to be clearer.”

“Could the symbol be a little larger?”

Eventually everything is important, which means nothing is.

Ask a very simple question:

What should somebody remember after seeing this logo for two seconds?

The design should help provide the answer.

6. Using different colours to separate every element

Colour is an extremely useful way to create hierarchy.

It’s also an easy way to make a logo unnecessarily busy.

One word is blue. Another is green. The symbol has two more shades. The descriptor is grey. Then perhaps there’s a contrasting accent colour somewhere to tie it all together.

Before long, colour isn’t supporting the identity; it’s organising it.

That’s worth watching because a strong logo shouldn’t fall apart when the colour is removed.

One of the simplest tests I use is to look at the logo in black and white.

If a logo works in black and white, it will work in any colour.

Without colour, you’re forced to judge the actual design: the shapes, proportions, typography, spacing and hierarchy.

If those things still work, colour can then make the identity stronger.

If they don’t, another shade of blue probably isn’t going to save it.

7. Adding tiny text that nobody can read

Descriptors and straplines can be useful.

Sometimes a company name gives absolutely no indication of what the business does, and a short supporting description provides valuable context.

The problem is forgetting how small logos are actually used.

A descriptor that looks perfectly readable when the logo fills your computer screen can virtually disappear when the same logo appears on a business card, website header or mobile phone.

The usual response is to make the text bigger.

But then the logo becomes bigger too.

And that creates another problem.

Rather than trying to make one version do absolutely everything, a better identity may have several arrangements: perhaps a full logo with the descriptor and a simpler version without it for smaller applications.

Your customer doesn’t need to be able to read a six-word service description from an embroidered polo shirt at twenty paces.

8. Making the logo ridiculously wide

Some company names naturally lend themselves to horizontal logos.

That’s fine.

Problems arise when a horizontal company name is combined with a symbol on one side, a strapline underneath and perhaps a decorative device extending beyond both.

You end up with a logo shaped roughly like a railway platform.

It might look perfectly good across the top of a website or along the side of a van.

Then somebody needs it in a square.

Social media profile image? Awkward.

App icon? Forget it.

Small sponsorship panel? Barely visible.

Favicon? Good luck.

A modern identity needs to work in a surprisingly wide range of proportions, which is why professional logo design should consider different arrangements from the beginning.

A horizontal logo might be the primary version, but there may also be a stacked version, symbol, monogram or other simplified variation for spaces where the full arrangement simply doesn’t fit.

9. Making the symbol more important than the name

A huge symbol beside a relatively small company name can look impressive.

But there’s a practical question:

Does anybody recognise the symbol yet?

For an established international brand, a familiar symbol may be all that’s needed.

For a small or relatively new business, the company name usually has rather more work to do.

If an unfamiliar symbol dominates the identity while the actual name is reduced to supporting status, you’re asking customers to recognise something they haven’t yet learned.

Symbols can become valuable shorthand over time. But that recognition has to be earned through consistent use.

This is particularly worth considering with startup branding, where the first priority is often establishing the name and identity in people’s minds.

10. Using effects to make the logo interesting

Gradients, shadows, transparency, outlines, highlights and three-dimensional effects can all have legitimate uses.

But they can also disguise a fairly weak underlying design.

There’s a simple way to find out.

Remove them.

Take the logo back to a single flat colour.

Does it still have a distinctive shape?

Does the typography still work?

Can you still recognise it?

If the logo suddenly loses everything that made it interesting, the effects may have been doing the job that the design should have been doing.

There are practical considerations too. Logos don’t live exclusively on screens.

They might need to be screen printed, embroidered, engraved, cut from vinyl, reproduced in black and white or printed using a limited number of colours.

A logo shouldn’t have an existential crisis because somebody asks for a one-colour version.

11. Designing a picture instead of a logo

Illustration and logo design aren’t the same thing.

An illustration can contain depth, shading, scenery, perspective, several objects and plenty of detail.

A logo generally needs to survive without most of those luxuries.

Problems occur when a logo attempts to depict a complete scene: a landscape behind a product, a building with lots of architectural detail, a vehicle, several objects or a complicated representation of the service being provided.

It might look attractive at a large size.

Reduce it to 25mm wide and see what’s left.

This doesn’t mean illustrated logos are inherently bad. They can be full of character and entirely appropriate for some businesses.

The trick is knowing how much information can be removed while retaining the idea.

A logo needs to be recognised before it needs to be examined.

12. Designing only one version

You’ve finally got the logo looking perfect.

Great.

Now put it on a dark background.

Put it inside a square.

Make it 20mm wide.

Print it in black only.

Put it at the top of a mobile website.

Use it as a social media avatar.

Put it on a photograph.

This is where seemingly good logos can suddenly become awkward.

A proper identity isn’t necessarily a single fixed piece of artwork. It can include different arrangements and versions designed for different circumstances while remaining recognisably the same brand.

You can see examples of how identities adapt across different applications in my logo design portfolio.

The important thing is that those variations are considered as part of the design rather than improvised every time somebody discovers the original doesn’t fit.

13. Not testing the logo at small sizes

This is perhaps the easiest mistake to avoid.

Zoom out.

Really far.

A logo is normally designed much larger than many of its eventual uses, which makes it easy to become fascinated by details that customers will barely see.

At smaller sizes, weaknesses reveal themselves quickly.

Thin lines disappear.

Small gaps close.

Descriptors become unreadable.

Similar colours merge.

Complicated symbols turn into blobs.

Lettering becomes indistinct.

If the logo remains recognisable when it’s small, that’s a very good sign.

If you need to zoom back in to appreciate why it’s clever, there’s probably more work to do.

14. Not asking whether every element earns its place

This is the test that catches a surprising number of the mistakes above.

Look at each part of the logo individually and ask:

What is this doing?

Why is that line there?

Why are those two words different colours?

Why does the symbol need a gradient?

Why is the strapline part of the logo?

Why is there a circle around it?

Why are those initials overlapping?

There should be an answer beyond “because it looked a bit plain without it.”

Good design isn’t about decorating every available space. Often it’s about having the confidence to stop.

Removing one unnecessary element might not transform a logo.

Remove five and it very well might.

The quick logo test

If you’re looking at an existing logo and wondering whether it’s doing its job properly, try stripping away the sales pitch and testing the design itself.

Can you recognise it when it’s small?

Does it work in black and white?

Is the company name clear?

Is there an obvious visual hierarchy?

Does it work without effects?

Can it fit comfortably into horizontal and square spaces?

Is there anything you could remove without losing the identity?

And perhaps most importantly:

Could this logo reasonably belong to half a dozen competitors?

If the answer to that last question is yes, immaculate artwork won’t solve the bigger problem.

A logo doesn’t need to say everything

Most of these logo design mistakes have something in common.

They’re caused by adding rather than removing.

Another symbol makes the industry clearer. Another colour separates the words. Another line fills the space. Another piece of text explains the service. Another effect makes the symbol stand out.

Each decision makes sense on its own.

The cumulative result often doesn’t.

Effective logo design is less about how much information can be fitted into the available space and more about deciding what deserves to be there in the first place.

A logo doesn’t have to explain your business.

It has to help people recognise it.

For a broader look at how the logo, typography, colour and other elements work together, read The Complete Guide to Logo Design & Brand Identity. And if you’re considering a new identity or think your existing one is trying rather too hard, take a look at my logo design services.