Typical mistakes when designing a logo
The logo is ready — can we print it right away?
No, if the file is raster. A raster image is a grid of pixels of a fixed size. When enlarged, the pixels simply stretch, and the edges become jagged, while thin lines become blurred. Vector works differently: it is mathematical formulas describing contours, so the logo can be output both on a business card sized one centimeter and on a billboard 10×5 meters — the quality will not change by even a degree.
The raster problem does not show up immediately, but at the most inconvenient moment: when you need to urgently make embroidery on a uniform, engraving on a souvenir, or a large-format banner. The print shop shakes their hands, the designer recalculates the estimate for redrawing — and all of this could have been prevented from the start, simply by ordering the logo in EPS, AI, or SVG.
| Parameter | Vector | Raster |
|---|---|---|
| Scaling | No quality loss, any size | Pixelation when enlarging |
| Printing on a large format | Sharp edges and lines | Blurring, 'staircase' on contours |
| Editing color/form | Easy and without quality loss | Requires redrawing |
| Use in engraving, embroidery | Possible directly | Vectorization required |
How to check that the logo does not rely solely on color
Take a ready-made logo and desaturate it in the editor with one click. If after this the shape is hard to read, the elements merge or contrast between the figure and the background is lost — the design has failed the test. This is not an optional check 'just in case for newspaper printing,' but a mandatory step: the black-and-white version shows how strong the shape itself is, without the cosmetics of color.
In practice, the logo will almost always live in conditions where color is not available: fax, stamp, engraving, black-and-white document printing, embroidery with one color of thread, embossing on a box. If the sign works only thanks to a fortunate combination of shades — it is fragile. A good test: print the logo in grayscale and show it to a person who has never seen it before — is the shape recognized within a second?
Is a simple logo always right, and a complex one always wrong?
No, but with a caveat. An investigation of more than 3000 respondents (HBR in collaboration with GtechDesign) showed: the most memorable quality of a logo is simplicity, and it outweighs almost all other characteristics, including originality. This is explained simply: the decision to trust a brand is made by a person within 0,5 seconds after the first visual contact, and in these fractions of a second the brain processes the shape faster than the details.
But there is also a reverse effect: with repeated exposure, complex logos over time begin to be rated higher than simple ones — recognition grows, and detail turns into an advantage rather than a hindrance. Hence the practical conclusion: complexity is acceptable if the brand has the resources for long and frequent exposure — outdoor advertising, shelf packaging, regular contact with the audience. For a startup without a budget for repeated touches, a complex logo is a risk of remaining unnoticed even within the first second.
Who we show the logo to — and when to think about it
Most guides recommend 'testing the logo on the audience' at the final stage, before handing over the project. This is an error in the order of actions. Understanding the audience should be built into the brief before the designer picks up a pencil, not checked post-factum when the concept is already approved and redesigning it is expensive and painful for all parties.
Ambiguity and potential offensiveness of the form are revealed not by the designer's intuition, but by specific procedures:
- Showing the logo to people unfamiliar with the brand, asking 'what do you see' — without leading formulations
- Checking for hidden forms at different scales — what is not noticeable in the large version often 'emerges' in the small one
- Testing on representatives of different cultural groups, if the brand plans to enter other markets — a gesture, color, or silhouette may carry a different meaning
- Mirroring and flipping the sign — sometimes an unfortunate association appears only in the reversed form
Such a check takes a couple of days and costs a few kopecks compared to the reputational damage from rebranding after a scandal
The logo is ready, but Rospatent rejected registration — why
This section is almost always omitted from typical articles about errors in logo design, but it's a mistake — legal consequences of visual decisions hit the business harder than an unfortunate font. If the logo elements are graphically separated — placed on different lines, typed in different point sizes, separated by a line, or significantly different in size — a Rospatent expert has the right to evaluate these parts not as a single sign, but separately
The consequence of such separation: even if the overall composition is original, an individual element may coincide with an already registered trademark, and the application will be rejected. This is exactly what happened in the case of the 'Grace family' mark and the 'Enjoy your English' case — in both instances, the visual dispersion of elements allowed the expertise and the court to consider them as independent, non-unified indicators, which led to similarity with other signs and rejection of protection
Practical takeaway for a designer's briefing: the logo composition should read as an indivisible whole — a single line, consistent typography, and no arbitrary separators between semantic blocks. This is not only a matter of aesthetics but also whether the brand will have a legally protected asset or just a pretty picture without legal grounding.
Other mistakes that appear in almost every project
| Error | Why this is critical |
|---|---|
| Chasing a trendy fad | A trend becomes outdated within 2-3 years; rebranding costs more than a neutral initial solution |
| Too many fonts or typefaces | Destroys the unity of perception, hinders registration as a single sign |
| Copying successful solutions of competitors | Risk of a legal dispute and loss of the brand's distinctive capability |
| Low contrast of elements | The logo is indistinguishable on media and fails the black-and-white test |
| Lack of adaptive versions | The sign breaks in favicon, social network avatar, or on a small package |
Each of these errors is individually fixable by editing. But if there are three or four of them — it's cheaper to remake the logo from scratch than to patch up the symptoms. Check the vector, the black-and-white version, and the integrity of the composition before approving the layout — these are three points that eliminate most risks at once.
The logo is ready — can we print it right away?
No, if the file is raster. A raster image is a grid of pixels of a fixed size. When enlarged, the pixels simply stretch, and the edges become jagged, while thin lines become blurred. Vector works differently: it is mathematical formulas describing contours, so the logo can be output both on a business card sized one centimeter and on a billboard 10×5 meters — the quality will not change by even a degree.
The raster problem does not show up immediately, but at the most inconvenient moment: when you need to urgently make embroidery on a uniform, engraving on a souvenir, or a large-format banner. The print shop shakes their hands, the designer recalculates the estimate for redrawing — and all of this could have been prevented from the start, simply by ordering the logo in EPS, AI, or SVG.
| Parameter | Vector | Raster |
|---|---|---|
| Scaling | No quality loss, any size | Pixelation when enlarging |
| Printing on a large format | Sharp edges and lines | Blurring, 'staircase' on contours |
| Editing color/form | Easy and without quality loss | Requires redrawing |
| Use in engraving, embroidery | Possible directly | Vectorization required |
How to check that the logo does not rely solely on color
Take a ready-made logo and desaturate it in the editor with one click. If after this the shape is hard to read, the elements merge or contrast between the figure and the background is lost — the design has failed the test. This is not an optional check 'just in case for newspaper printing,' but a mandatory step: the black-and-white version shows how strong the shape itself is, without the cosmetics of color.
In practice, the logo will almost always live in conditions where color is not available: fax, stamp, engraving, black-and-white document printing, embroidery with one color of thread, embossing on a box. If the sign works only thanks to a fortunate combination of shades — it is fragile. A good test: print the logo in grayscale and show it to a person who has never seen it before — is the shape recognized within a second?
Is a simple logo always right, and a complex one always wrong?
No, but with a caveat. An investigation of more than 3000 respondents (HBR in collaboration with GtechDesign) showed: the most memorable quality of a logo is simplicity, and it outweighs almost all other characteristics, including originality. This is explained simply: the decision to trust a brand is made by a person within 0,5 seconds after the first visual contact, and in these fractions of a second the brain processes the shape faster than the details.
But there is also a reverse effect: with repeated exposure, complex logos over time begin to be rated higher than simple ones — recognition grows, and detail turns into an advantage rather than a hindrance. Hence the practical conclusion: complexity is acceptable if the brand has the resources for long and frequent exposure — outdoor advertising, shelf packaging, regular contact with the audience. For a startup without a budget for repeated touches, a complex logo is a risk of remaining unnoticed even within the first second.
Who we show the logo to — and when to think about it
Most guides recommend 'testing the logo on the audience' at the final stage, before handing over the project. This is an error in the order of actions. Understanding the audience should be built into the brief before the designer picks up a pencil, not checked post-factum when the concept is already approved and redesigning it is expensive and painful for all parties.
Ambiguity and potential offensiveness of the form are revealed not by the designer's intuition, but by specific procedures:
- Showing the logo to people unfamiliar with the brand, asking 'what do you see' — without leading formulations
- Checking for hidden forms at different scales — what is not noticeable in the large version often 'emerges' in the small one
- Testing on representatives of different cultural groups, if the brand plans to enter other markets — a gesture, color, or silhouette may carry a different meaning
- Mirroring and flipping the sign — sometimes an unfortunate association appears only in the reversed form
Such a check takes a couple of days and costs a few kopecks compared to the reputational damage from rebranding after a scandal
The logo is ready, but Rospatent rejected registration — why
This section is almost always omitted from typical articles about errors in logo design, but it's a mistake — legal consequences of visual decisions hit the business harder than an unfortunate font. If the logo elements are graphically separated — placed on different lines, typed in different point sizes, separated by a line, or significantly different in size — a Rospatent expert has the right to evaluate these parts not as a single sign, but separately
The consequence of such separation: even if the overall composition is original, an individual element may coincide with an already registered trademark, and the application will be rejected. This is exactly what happened in the case of the 'Grace family' mark and the 'Enjoy your English' case — in both instances, the visual dispersion of elements allowed the expertise and the court to consider them as independent, non-unified indicators, which led to similarity with other signs and rejection of protection
Practical takeaway for a designer's briefing: the logo composition should read as an indivisible whole — a single line, consistent typography, and no arbitrary separators between semantic blocks. This is not only a matter of aesthetics but also whether the brand will have a legally protected asset or just a pretty picture without legal grounding.
Other mistakes that appear in almost every project
| Error | Why this is critical |
|---|---|
| Chasing a trendy fad | A trend becomes outdated within 2-3 years; rebranding costs more than a neutral initial solution |
| Too many fonts or typefaces | Destroys the unity of perception, hinders registration as a single sign |
| Copying successful solutions of competitors | Risk of a legal dispute and loss of the brand's distinctive capability |
| Low contrast of elements | The logo is indistinguishable on media and fails the black-and-white test |
| Lack of adaptive versions | The sign breaks in favicon, social network avatar, or on a small package |
Each of these errors is individually fixable by editing. But if there are three or four of them — it's cheaper to remake the logo from scratch than to patch up the symptoms. Check the vector, the black-and-white version, and the integrity of the composition before approving the layout — these are three points that eliminate most risks at once.
Recent articles
MegaFon, BMW, VTB and more 240+ companies. See how it looks in the showcase reel:
Our branding agency is approached to order:
Branding agency services
