If you are an aspiring designer looking to delve into logo design, you’ll want to develop your own style instead of simply emulating examples around you. Effective logos are more than just pretty; a well-designed logo is purposeful and unique, which makes following commonplace trends a losing strategy. Avid readers of DesignFestival are probably aware of troublesome colors that have the potential to be an eyesore. This time, we want to focus on a list of overused logo trends that should be avoided if you’re looking to design distinct branding for yourself and your clients.
These design patterns weren’t always trite; but each new addition to the bandwagon (or rather “brandwagon“) dilutes the effectiveness of existing identities with similar visual qualities. As a result, these techniques have lost their appeal over time.
1. A Self-Portrait of the Owner
Unless you’re in the real estate industry, using your own (spokesperson’s) photo on the header of your website should be avoided as part of common sense. Unfortunately, some business owners and executives let pride and ego lead them to poor decisions. It’s far better to visually allude to products and services offered instead of substituting imagery of the people offering them. Besides, leaving a sense of mystery on who the owner is can be advantageous, and ultimately, customers rarely care about who is behind their favorite purchases.
2. Helvetica
You may have considered using the tried-and-true Helvetica font to bear your name. Well, this type of font has served many famous brands well, but it’s become a fairly standard “vanilla” typeface that’s better suited to body copy, not your logo. Although minimalism is popular this year, logos must outlive fleeting design trends. It defeats the idea of what a logo should be like – fun, witty, exciting, different, and creative.
3. Overlapping Letters
The overlapping letter style can be traced back to our grandmother’s era. But for better or worse, this technique is still quite popular, especially for law firms. A series of capital letters side-by-side is about as indistinct as a designer can get. It makes for a pretty generic first impression, which ultimately translates to failure on the part of the designer.
4. Use of Silhouettes
It’s been said earlier that leaving a sense of mystery garners attention, but using silhouettes of your products, people, or paraphernalia can lack clarity and garner more confusion and disinterest than attention. Besides being monotonous, this technique typically uses a lot of black. Using black for the entire logo can be cumbersome if you don’t complement it with a myriad of brighter, bolder colors. Why hide behind the shadows if your goal is to stand out?
5. The Pointy Human Logo
I’m sure some of you have already seen the pointy man wrapped around in colored circles or connected to each other forming a unified loop. This is probably the most used technique by start ups calling for a human face. Surely, the pointy man can be edited and blended with different symbols, but there’s nothing like starting anew with fresh ideas and concepts.
Logo design isn’t just about blending symbols and colors. It’s about you coming up with a brand that represents entrepreneurial vision. Turn on your true creativity and demand distinctive designs from yourself.
Have you grown tired of certain logo trends? Have you made any mistakes of your own that affected the originality and efficacy of your designs?