5 graphic design mistakes you need to avoid

If you’ve ever had to create or obtain a design for your business multiple times before, you’re sure to have had at least one regretful experience. Whether it’s a design that either doesn’t match your branding, doesn’t convey the right message, or is just too ugly to use, that’s likely a mistake that led to a waste of time and money, as well as a hard lesson learned.

You can learn to not let that happen to your business again by understanding some of the most common mistakes other businesses tend to make with their graphic design.

Bad Creative Brief

The planning that precedes a project is a crucial stage as it can dictate how a graphic design project will go. If the plan itself is either unclear or vague in its particulars, then the project is sure to encounter otherwise avoidable problems.

Such gaffes can cost valuable time and money, and it may either yield a less than satisfactory result or even failure to complete. A bad creative brief can create misunderstandings and gaps that will inevitably cause delays and disaster in the graphic design process.

The remedy to this is by simply being clear with your language and instruction. Be exacting and detailed with what you want, enough for the designer to know what you’re looking for. The less questions need to be asked during the actual designing, the better and quicker the result.

Also, be open to providing and receiving feedback during the project to prevent miscommunication.

Over-designing

While you want to do as much as possible to ensure success, you can easily do to much all at once and yield a less satisfactory result. This is true for graphic design as well. Over-designing can turn an otherwise brilliant concept into an ugly and chaotic mess.

It can range from using too many bold colors at once or having too many elements in one space to just making too busy. Whatever it is, those mistakes can hurt the overall concept and really in the failure of the design process.

If you do decide to use that final product anyway, it won’t be able to achieve its preps as well as you expect. It’s not that having a busy design is instantly bad, but it can be distracting. In most cases in graphic design, less is more.

Making your design as simple as possible is about having enough of what you need. White space must be used properly to achieve this.

Relying Too Much on Design Trends

While being updated with the latest trends in design is important for a designer, it may not be the best idea to simply emulate popular styles simply for the sake of them being popular.

Being able to understand why those trends are popular in the first place, distilling and deconstructing them to their most basic elements, and coming up with new ways to use them is the hallmark of a great designer. After all, creativity is the main factor with design.

The problem with most popular design trends is they tend to age badly. After even just a few years, they may start looking outdated if they happen to be trends that had little to no good design foundation and only came about due to some pop culture fad or the like.

When all else fails, the tried-and-tested ways and solid design principles are always good to fall back on. It’s not to say trends are bad, but care must be taken in considering them.

Too Much Text and Going Nuts with Fonts

As far as graphic design goes, you want to use as little text as you possibly can. The only text you’d want in something like a logo is the brand name and maybe the tagline and that’s it.

Graphic design is about conveying information and aesthetics in a balanced manner within a limited space. So, the overabundance of text in a graphic design is undesirable as it overcrowds and can cover up much of the visual elements.

Also, you have to make sure the font suits the design, or at least not clash with it. It also has to be sized appropriately, not too big while still being readable.

You also wouldn’t want to use too many different fonts at once in one design. The general rule of thumb is a maximum of two different fonts. Otherwise, it’ll clash or be too distracting.

Missing the Point

This may be the most egregious mistake you can make with a graphic design. While it may look great and check most of the boxes, if it doesn’t convey the message it should, then it has failed. This mistake is easy to overlook as it can take a bit to comprehend a design’s true viability.

This is why feedback is important. You must gauge feedback from both customers and colleagues in order to know whether an idea has succeeded or failed, then learn about why that result came about. Either way, you get to learn how to be more relevant to customers.

If you’re looking to hire a professional graphic designer, our team is happy to help! Please contact us and we’ll get back to you soon.