Big brands, with their impressive logo designs, are easily recognizable. Their logo plays a crucial role in branding.
There are two types of logos — the good logos and the bad logos. Those who get it right from the start create an unforgettable identity; those who don’t end up being remembered for their lousy selection of logos.
Whether you know it or not, ugly logos damage businesses in many ways. One of the biggest harms caused by them is that they reduce a brand’s ability to communicate with its target customers.
Small businesses depend greatly on logos to convey their brand message and values to customers. A logo is the first visual they notice when enquiring about a business and buying its offerings.
But, a bad logo design fails to build a rapport with its target customers. This is because such a design leaves the audience confused, and they turn to other competitive brands. So, a logo must first be good enough for effective brand communication.
What is brand communication?
Brand communication is about bringing its brand values, personality, and message to target customers. So, all those advertising, marketing, and social media tactics to reach customers fall under brand communication. The intention is to influence customers’ shopping choices and thoughts and drive them toward a specific brand.
For example, the Starbucks TV commercial is an excellent example of brand communication. This commercial projects Starbucks personally by showing the brand’s coffee products in an easily recognizable, fun way. Then, there were Nike Social Media Advertisements that looked funny and eye-catching. The logos of these brands simplified their identity and enabled people remember them for longer.
What is brand communication design?
Brand communication design is reaching out to the customers with strategically designed visuals. Such visuals include logos, business cards, websites, and all other marketing and advertising means.
These marketing means include billboards, TV commercials, radio advertisements, newsletters, and all online and offline platforms. The communication approach using all such means is kept cohesive and effective.
Of all the visual identities, a logo is a brand’s most important identity. It becomes its brand’s spokesperson, frequently interacting with target customers. A strategically designed brand logo communicates its brand’s values, message, and personality.
What is a bad logo design?
A bad logo design fails on some time-proven graphic design standards. It is a design that does more harm to its brand than good. But you can easily identify one such logo that is an example of a bad graphic design and should be replaced or modified.
Here is how to spot a bad logo design:
It is a complicated design
A badly designed logo looks complicated at a glance. It has multiple elements tangled directionlessly in a random manner. Such logos appear as just a casual scratch drawn in a hurry to get a logo for the sake of it. Such a logo can also be too decorative with many colors.
It is not scalable
Businesses advertise and market their products through different online and offline platforms. But if the logo has a poorly thought-out design, it will look disproportionate when scaled up or down. So, it may lose its visual impact when appearing on billboards, with some elements looking oversized. Similarly, the logo may lose details when reduced down.
A bad logo is an outdated design
You cannot reach your present-day customers with an old-fashioned logo design. The new generation of the target audience may get the wrong impression if your logo looks outdated and appears to be coming from the ‘80s or ’90s era.
A standard design that lasts many years and even decades without being outdated would be good.
It is not unique and memorable
Another problematic characteristic of a poorly conceived logo is its similar-looking design. A bad logo reminds you of another logo, maybe of a famous brand. So, it is a common design. Therefore, it only registers in people’s minds for a short time.
Now that you have a fair idea of a bad logo design know how it adversely impacts your brand communication.
How does a bad logo design impact your brand communication?
When designing a logo, consider its ability to communicate your brand values and personality to target customers. If you do not think of the design from a communication angle, it may cause distrust for your brand among your audience. Here are the disadvantages:
Harms brand authority
The biggest harm that a bad logo design causes is that it becomes a hurdle in building your brand authority. A small business tries hard to be seen as holding some specialization in the products or services it offers.
But an ugly logo without concerns for conveying its company’s message and personality impedes the way. Gradually, potential customers start seeing it as some unprofessional business and move away from it.
Fails to distinguish a brand from competitors
A successful company stands out from its competitors in its niche market. Unless it looks different, a business cannot grow per expectations. Bad logo designs mostly have stock elements incorporated casually. They also resemble many other such emblems in the market.
Therefore, when people fail to distinguish a logo from many others, they get the message that the brand is just among many in the market. Such bad company logos are a hurdle in a company’s attempts to look unique in its target market.
With a casually designed logo, your brand will fail to communicate your values and message to customers. They will not be able to differentiate your brand from ordinary companies in the market.
Customers migrate to other competitive brands
Another setback a business suffers due to its bad logo design is losing customers to other brands. Know that a small business especially needs to compete hard. There are already multiple new and established companies in any given market with unique offerings. In that scenario, if customers prefer other brands over yours, that will throw you out of the competition.
Since your logo is a bad design, it signals bad or less competitive products or services offered to customers. A bad design conveys that the company is unprofessional and cannot be trusted for quality products or services.
So, your company’s bad brandmark even if it’s a custom logo design may discourage customers from buying your products or services. They will look up to other brands whose logos are impressive and whose product quality is dependable.
Significant loss of market share
The growth of a business over the years depends mainly on how much market share it controls. Small businesses especially aspire to grab a good chunk of the market pie. They take years to make their presence felt in a niche market.
But if a logo is not a good design and fails to communicate its brand values, customers will distrust it. Gradually, the logo leads to a loss of market share.
Bad design leads to customer confusion
When consumers see a logo, they must get its message instantly. Such a simple design conveys its values and message instantly at a glance. But a bad design usually has irrelevant images, colors, fonts, etc. Most of them have conflicting themes.
Such logos mismatch what they should be conveying and what they signal. Most such designs lead to confusion since different elements do not create a cohesive image for the message. In a survey it’s found that about 60% of audiences avoid a brand having a bad logo design.
So, these are the key considerations when thinking about how a bad logo design has an adverse impact on the communication ability of a brand. Make sure that you avoid these mistakes while pondering how to design a logo.
If you want to ensure that yours is not a bad logo design, then let a professional designer create your brand emblem. Alternatively, you can choose logo design services of Designhill, the leading creative marketplace for the same.
You can get multiple new logo ideas by launching a logo design contest. Alternatively, you can use its DIY logo maker and create a logo on your own. The logo generator also provides various logo ideas to choose from.
Wrapping Up
The logo design should be a perfect visual that can convey your brand personality, values, and message. But a bad logo design with its complex design, multiple elements, themes, and other confusing factors harms businesses more than it does any good. By identifying such a bad design, a business can correct the mistakes for better brand communication.
