What is Bad Logo Design

We all know the good logos, companies such as Apple, Nike, McDonalds etc.  These are all examples of good logos and should be used as examples for what a good logo is.  However, countless companies and organizations don’t have a good logo.  Here are some attributes that could label a logo as bad design.  There are many other examples and traits that create bad logo design these are some very important DON’TS for logos.

Too Much Detail

Look at this logo, I still can’t figure out the name of the company, am I supposed to read it clockwise? Left to right, and line by line? There is so much being said here I can’t see what the logo even says without concentrating on it for a long time. Keep it simple.  In the attempt to say so much, you end up not saying anything at all.

Gradients Bevels and Drop Shadows

One of the biggest what not to do when designing a logo, is to never use rainbow gradients, bevels and drop shadows.  These effects looks like they are from webpages from the 1990s and are so overly used its sickening.  “designers” like to use these effects and they think it makes their work pop out and look good when it does the exact opposite. A logo that looks like this looks like it cost 5$  and took five minutes to make and most likely it did. Logos, should use one, two, three, maybe four colors max.  When you use a gradient with two or more colors, your using hundreds of colors that are very hard to reproduce.

Trends

Often times designers get caught up in the fads and trends of the time.  For the longest time and even now one of the most common trends is the swoosh.  Nike is the Swoosh logo.  So many companies copied it, that everyones’ logo looks the same.  In logo design, trends and fads are bad.  You must be unique and timeless.

Bad Design

Some logos are just bad design for obvious reasons that don’tneed to be explained.  Pay attention as a designer as to what you are doing.  For clients, pay attention to what your paying money for.

I could go on and on with countless more examples and explinations.  I hope this has helped designers for what they should NOT do.  As for clients, make sure your logo doesn’t look like this.

Related Posts:

1. Why YouTube isn’t the Best Place to Learn Logo Design
2. Logo Design Process
3. What is a Logo and Logo Design
4. Wordmark or Symbol?
5. Not Every Logo Needs to be Great