Design School Canva have written a great article about the mistakes most business make when it comes to branding.
01. Design Inconsistency
We’ve all seen when businesses get lazy and decide to haphazardly use a colour or a font outside of their usual style. Will it mean the end of the business and a dramatic crash in sales? Of course not, but over time if it continues and the business becomes lax with all aspects of their branding, it will impact their customer’s perception of the them. Being inconsistent with your branding comes across unorganised and unreliable, and you run the risk of your customers confusing your business with your competitors and other brands.
02. Me-too Branding
When your competitors are killing it with their flawless branding it’s easy to fall into thoughts of copying aspects of their brand to help boost your own. This mindset leads to unoriginal branding and a lack of trust with your audience, as well as possible legal trouble. With millions of business and logos out there in the world there is of course the chance that you will come across something similar as your own, but you just need to continually push yourself to be original and think about what you can do to stand out.
03. Trying to Appeal to Everyone
Having no specific demographic may seem like a great idea for your brand at first. The idea that if you can appeal to everyone then you are more likely to increase your sales, but there are very few business that successfully appeal to an unrestrained demographic. You may be scared to focus in on a niche market in case you miss out on the larger market, but honing in on your target demographic is the best way to build a connection with your audience.
04. Out-of-place Visuals
Once you focus in on your target demographic, really consider what kind of visuals will appeal to them, without being stereotypical. You need to choose fonts, colours and imagery that will be suitable for your brand and audience. Avoid any cliche outdated stock photos and bad quality images as these will drastically decrease the impact and professionalism of your brand.05. Overreliance on the Logo
Your brand is so much more than your logo. Everything from your business’s name, logo, colours, fonts, slogan and imagery all make up your visual branding. Having a good logo doesn’t mean the journey is over. To create an effective visual brand you must carry this across everything you produce, from social media posts to gift cards. To do that, you have to have an application-friendly logo — one that can be rendered onto the type of visuals and colours you will be needing for your brand.
