Graphic Design

• Bigcrea Team
• Graphic Design

Branding on a Budget: 7 Logo Mistakes That Cost Credibility

People decide whether a business looks trustworthy in milliseconds, and your logo does most of that talking. These are the seven mistakes we see - and fix - most often.

The seven sins

1. The stretched logo. Different proportions on the van, the sign and the website - it screams 'nobody is in charge of this brand'. 2. Low-resolution everything. A pixelated logo on an invoice undoes a thousand pounds of other marketing. 3. Clip-art and AI-mush. Generic marks that three competitors also use. 4. Unreadable at small sizes. If it dies as a social avatar, it fails where it is seen most.

5. Trend-chasing. Gradients and fads date in eighteen months; good marks last decades. 6. Seven fonts and five colours. Restraint reads as confidence. 7. No files. Owning only a small JPG - no vectors, no variations - means every printer and sign-maker starts from scratch, badly.

What doing it properly costs

Less than you think: professional logo design starts around £195, a full identity with guidelines and every file format from £495. Spread over the decade a good identity lasts, it is the cheapest employee you will ever hire - one that makes a first impression thousands of times a year. See our design services for how we approach it.