Graphic design is like a root canal: it’s something that can be painful to laypeople and best left to the pros.
Even still, a mistake in either can be quite painful. Unfortunately, in graphic design, mistakes abound and have a negative impact on countless brands and their public images.
Here, we’ll explore a few perils of design: mistakes with graphic design that are easy to make, but not always easy to identify, avoid, or correct.
Misusing Fonts
One of the most common graphic design mistakes we see companies making today is trying to be hip and trendy with too many fonts in the same graphic or on the same page.
There’s nothing wrong with being hip and trendy. And you don’t have to stick to just one font. But jumbling your fonts together is always bad and creates a muddled image for your client, obscuring your message in the process.
To prevent this, create a set of standards for your brand. In this document, you should have ~3 fonts (each with a specific purpose) for you to use on marketing collateral. This will help limit the number of fonts current and future designers can use with your branding—ensuring you establish a brand that transcends generations.
Check out this picture from the folks at Zazzle, who said it best.
Overdoing Color
The trend today is flat design, or design that, among other things, makes use of bold colors. You can very easily go overboard with color, though, and create a color palette for your brand that irritates your viewers and turns them off to your brand.
One common mistake with overdoing color is to go bright with contrasts. Big, bold, contrasting colors put in close proximity to each other can not only look bad, but also make people dizzy (it’s true).
Today’s trend is to use a lot of negative space with specific colors as accents, not to use too many colors.
Introducing Clutter
Finally, clutter is the eternal enemy of good graphic design.
Your website may have a lot to say, but you have to say it in an organized manner. Designs that present entirely too much information, will overload your viewer and cause them to click away faster than you can say the words.
Use your space well. It’s better to showcase only a few things and include a call to action to see more than to try to fit too much information onto one page or one graphic. Be very selective in what information you convey, and you’ll be on the right track.
Good graphic design, like good dentistry, is best left to the pros who have a track record of providing excellence. Contact professional graphic designers to avoid these mistakes and others.
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