5 Common Mistakes Every Branding Identity Designers Must Avoid
Good designs is Aesthetic, Useful, Unobtrusive, Honest, Understandable, Innovative, Thorough down to last detail? NO! It is much simpler, Good Design has Purpose with Art using Science. Similarly,there are so many such complicated things branding identity designers follow without questioning!
Let me guide you to the designer’s world of simplicity, and get out of herd mentality. When you complicate things, the ‘Human Touch’ is lost!
Photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash
Basic Research with help of Branding Identity Designers.
Who better understands than by good designers themselves. I went out on Facebook in a closed group called The Web Design and Branding Community. Will be mentioning the top 5 mistakes by identity designers, and you will be surprised with the answers!
Asked for a pole, and here is what I received as an answer…
1. Wasting Time In Search Of Perfection
“Have no fear of perfection — you’ll never reach it.”
-Salvador Dali
I sure do love Apple, but Apple isn’t without a design sin. Great minds who designed iPods and iMac also designed Macintosh TV! A huge amount of time is wasted if you dig into the product so much so that the spark is lost!
Can you expect Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino to rate all the upcoming movies? A lot of film-makers will file bankruptcy!
P.S. — Big Fan! 😀 I studied their work while early days of film making classes.
2. Designer ≠ User
“People ignore design that ignores people.”
-Frank Chimero
No, I don’t prefer pastel colors, AI bot chats and nor do I understand Sans-Serif and Serif. I am a common user, looking to buy some clothes online. Just make my journey easy!
Make your finance guys and your receptionist go through the prototype, ask them for honest opinions, colors, content, look and feel, etc… They might not understand Helvetica but can tell you Montserrat is what they might prefer.
3. Why Pretend?
“If you are not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original”
I am 27 years old, have no clue how to drive a car. What if I pretend and take your daughter out on a long drive? YES! DISASTER!!! Similarly, the project could be your client’s baby too! If you don’t know something, accept and work on it. You can’t just keep applying stale stock solutions to all design problems thinking you know the best.
Respect your client, take good care of them, the great depression in the economy is near!
4. Testing, QC?
“f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n wbste tstng.”
-Not Me
Testing doesn’t really matter unless you don’t mind looking like a fool when clients point out silly mistakes. Some of us are missing a command to re-check our own work. Maybe God will provide our software update, but by the time, why not QC products through someone else.
It’s not making you any less of a designer. Illustrations can be altered, the software can be updated and features can be modified, chill!
5. Making Non-Functional Design
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
–Steve Jobs
What makes this a good designer’s work?
- The visual hierarchy is clear. I know I am being guided to choose an event.
- The visual weight is aesthetically pleasing. The intent is clear, links in the bottom help guide better.
- Ever heard the phrase, “less is more”? Key to good design is to be able to design as little as possible. On this screen, I’m not confused about where to look, or what to press. Everything is easily understandable to me as the user.
Now that we know what we need to avoid, we will focus on branding identity design with purpose, art, and science in a true sense. Only then we can be prepared for the study of CX. Do visit Leo9 Studio, as these designers are really doing what is expected and more, that’s a great way to inject CX into design culture and design thinking!
If you feel you know what it is, re-read this article’s point number 3!