9 Logo Mistakes Small Businesses Make (and Quick Fixes)
Learn the 9 most common small business logo mistakes, from tiny text to clipart, with fast fixes that save money.
Why small business logos go wrong
Nearly 70 percent of small business logos fail basic tests because owners design in a rush with no clear brief or grid. Tiny text, stock clipart and five-color rainbows look cheap and blur badly at 32 pixels wide.
A confusing logo costs real money since 42 percent of customers judge credibility within 10 seconds of seeing branding. You can generate the logo online in about 20 minutes for under 40 dollars and compare 3 clean concepts side by side.
9 mistakes to fix this week
Small logos must survive at 16 pixels tall, so taglines under 12 points turn into gray mush on phones and receipts. Remove slogans from the icon, keep body text above 14 points and test prints at 2 inches wide.
Stock clipart appears in roughly 15000 other logos and can trigger license claims of 500 dollars or more per misuse. Draw one simple original mark with 2 colors, lock proportions and export SVG plus PNG at 2000 pixels.
- Tiny text under 12 points
- Stock clipart anyone can buy
- More than 3 colors
- Stretched or pixelated files
- Logo copied from competitors