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The Angry Designer Graphic Design, Freelancing, Branding & Creative Business Podcast
Awful Logo Design. A MasterClass In Bad Logo Design for Good Designers
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Foreign. You're listening to the Angry Designer podcast, where we help frustrated graphic designers crush the industry chaos, ditch the social BS and build badass, rewarding careers that actually pay now. Powered by WIX Studio. So, yeah, let me tell you what happened. I took my daughter, my youngest daughter, okay? She. She. She's into soccer. Nine years old, right? And I took her to a trip. Training academy. Soccer training academy, right. Who coincidentally enough, is owned by James Bernard's cousin. Oh, yeah, right. Totally. Small world, right? Like, James Bernard, you know, Australia, England. Guy in Australia, yeah. We meet up with him, we talk, and his freaking cousin has got a soccer studio here. So just walking distance, literally, from ours, from our place. And I'm there and I'm looking at the logo, okay? The logo that James created. And James would always be like, oh, you know, it's not that good when you're doing stuff for family. You just kind of. You give them something. Throw it out there. Yeah, yeah. Just to shut him up. I'm sure that's a whole episode all together. Yeah, probably. And he keeps, like, going on about us. Not that good. But I'm looking at it. I'm like. And I actually really like it. Like, I mean, it's kind of got these funky Tron like, fonts, which generally I don't like, but I. I think they work great. It's in, like, a goalkeeper's box. I. I kind of dig it. Right? Okay. And then today, you know, I'm. I'm here, I'm flipping through Instagram, I see Alan Peters, his Paluva logo, right? He's, like, featured on Adobe, right? And it talks about his process. And. Okay, although the product is weird, right? Because the shoes, running shoes with toes, like those little ninja toes, right? Could fit my fat bread Flintstone toes in those shoes. But regardless of the product is weird. The logo is awesome. Oh, yeah, it's beautiful. It's got lines through it, like the toes. Right, right. And then his whole, you know, setup afterwards, and I'm like, huh, now that's good. Okay. It's really good. And then, you know, I was flipping through just because I have no life apparently, you know, And. And I see cj, cj, CJ Cold is going on about his DOSI logo, right? And that's the. The Indian beverage company, right? And he's got, like a. Created this beautiful freaking peacock, okay, icon logo. And again, just mind blowing. So these guys, what they all have in common, okay, that I'm kind of, you know, realizing, is they focus on creating really beautiful logos I'm talking top notch, okay? And I mean, these guys, it's like, I don't even know how hard they try anymore because it's just, it's, it's just, it's just, just rolls out of the. Right? Yeah, yeah. But, you know, there's obviously this whole other type of logo that these guys are not entertaining, okay? And it's wildly popular, okay? These guys aren't exploring this shit. And it's wildly fucking popular because I see, I see it everywhere. I see them everywhere. I'm talking. I'm in Alberta. I see them. I'm downtown Toronto. I see them. I'm here, right? And everywhere I look, I see this other kind of logo. What is this? And it's bad logos, okay? And it's clearly a thing, okay? Shitty logo. Oh, I get it, I get it. It's clearly a thing, okay? Because again, with all the help that there is, all the help online, on YouTube, on Instagram, everybody's being like, here, try this, try this, try. They're giving you tips, they're giving you suggestions, and these bad logos still exist and they're everywhere. Yeah, fuck it. I'm doing it on my own. I'm not gonna learn how to do this. So there must be a reason for this. And I thought, you know, I think this is a good opportunity for us to explore this world of how to actually create a bad logo. So I actually spent, you know, I exhausted my whole day. Oh, God. You know, Blogs, Behance, Fiverr. I'm just going everywhere because. Because there's not a lot of information on how to create a bad. Lots of information on creating good logos, but there's not a lot of information on creating bad ones. Are we going learn that today? Learn that today. Oh, good. I have developed a list of 25 ways on how to ensure that you are making the world's worst logo, you know, which could go in line with being the world's worst designer. So I thought this would be perfect to explore because this, this is a secret because it doesn't exist online, anywhere. So goals. I. I'm telling you, I rediscovered something here and I'm letting the cat out of the bag, guys. Wow. Wow. But before I do, of course, I just want to let everybody know that we have a kick ass newsletter called Anger Management for Designers. I want you guys to go and check out, you know, just like our podcast. Entertaining, educational. We've got a little AI blip in there. We're throwing a little comic on what to work on next, you know, we're not selling you anything. It's just trying to grow this community a little bit, to reach out. And it's just another way to reach out to our. To our listeners, to our fans. So hit us up. You know, you can find out how to get there through our profile. We've got a link on there. I think you can go directly to anger management for designers dot com. We're there as well and from our website. So please sign up. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I'm sure we'll be talking about this on there at some point. Yes. But as I was going on. Okay, so I've developed a list here of 25 Ways of How to actually. And I've broken them up into sections. Just. Just, you know, so we're letting the cat out of the bag. So nobody's trying to. So section one, you know, fonts and typography crimes. Okay. Because in all fairness, fonts are like the soul of the logo. Yeah, well, we just. We just gotta rip that apart. Okay. We gotta destroy that. Because if there's a chance to make a logo look good with the font. Yeah, no, no, get it. So, for example, what are we talking? There are over 200,000 different commonly used fonts, Fonts available to designers right now. Wow. Okay, 200,000. And then with the extensions and everything, I think the number was closer to half a million. Oh, my God. So when you're creating a logo, use them all. Use them all. You have access. You have access to a plethora of logos, so why limit yourself to just one or two? I mean, you're doing yourself a dis. Just. Just your system alone is probably not like 30 or 40. Exactly. Adobe gives you some. Oh, you got. Yeah, unlimited font squirrel. These are high quality font, you know, libraries, boundaries. Go and use them all. Okay. And don't be scared to mix it up. You know, throw a wing ding in there. Okay. Uppercase, lowercase serif, sun serif. Right. Mix that shit up. Yes. Why. Why go with boring old Helvetica? Right? Because everybody else does. What's the point? Boring Helvetica, please. Massimo Vignelli suggested only only limit yourself to six or seven fonts. He missed out. Yeah, he's. He never ever clearly dreamed of font squirrel. Never, Never, never. All right, number two. Okay. When using fonts in your logos, okay, if there's some space that you have to align things, don't think about kerning or even tracking. Dretch. The fonts just. Just like, basically. Yeah. You know, you know, make them 120% 130%. Because when font designers create fonts, okay. It's only suggestive. Okay. Like they're the saying, this is how I like to do it. But you're the designer. You should take the reins. And this is our chance to. So don't be scared to use the font. Because think about it, a font's this way, but as soon as I start stretching it up, down, back and forth, completely different. It's like 10 different fonts all together. So don't be scared to stretch fonts. And bonus points if it becomes unlegible. And yet you can still squeeze it in. There, there. Stretched it just enough. I like the way you point out the way the designer intended the font to be used. Don't do that. I'm the designer here. No, no, no. You do whatever you want to stretch that font. You go in. That's not what I wanted, but go ahead. All right. Number three. Okay. Number three, when creating a logo and using, you know, like lettering in there, spell something wrong. Oh, the classic. You can throw in a typo into a logo. Nobody would expect. Yeah, nobody would. Right. Okay. They would look at it, they would question it. It would shock people. Right. And you know, again, bonus points if you can get it to the approval stage without the customer knowing. Yeah. That is. Yeah. You've really transcended to another level when you could do something like that. Absolutely. Right. So again, you know, push for a typo. Push for a typo. Okay. Yeah. And number four. Okay. If you have the option. Okay. When you're creating a logo, focus on the mark. You don't have to worry about the company name. I know the company's name and my client clearly knows the client's name. So you can make it so small, make it irrelevant in the logo if necessary. You know, light colored, it doesn't even matter. It should be an afterthought if it is even there. Even there. Yeah, the word. The word mark just would stand out on its own or the record. Okay. The Nike swoosh. You don't see Nike there? There is no Nike there. Why should my startup have my company's name on there either? Okay. I'm just as important as Nike. Fair enough. Fair enough. All right. So you know, color. Yeah. Plays a very big part in creating the world's worst look. Okay. So, you know, you know, color has great power. And as you know, with great power comes great responsibility. Okay? So this is our opportunity to be completely irrespons with color. Okay. Because it is such a critical part of A logo. Okay. So, for example, you know, when you're picking your font color, do it blindfolded, because apparently these world's worst logos are. The colors are picked this way. Right. Don't worry about matching, complimenting. Right. None of this matters because clearly, you know, those who match and. And, you know, try to make, you know, like, nice color themes and stuff, they really. They think they know what they're doing, but not in the world's worst logo, so. Oh, my God, That's. That's awesome. Are there any logos in plaid? Anything? Now that. That would be something that we should explore. I know. That would be something, too, on a plaid background. Bam. That's some Canadian magic, isn't it? Big time. All right. Oh, my God. When. When. When you're creating the colors in your logo, right? Yeah. Make sure your logo is absolutely impossible to print, okay? Impossible. Okay. And I'm not talking about just making it full color, but I'm talking use metallics. I'm talking use gold fleck. Okay. Use gradients. Use glitter. Glitter you can. My daughter would approve. Okay. Seriously, you make sure that that logo with all these special effects is impossible to print on any laser. Nobody's printing my logo on a laser printer, my friend. No, no, no, no, no, no. That beautiful gold leaf y. Easily recreate. Right? Good luck. Good luck. It's the point. You know, while you're at it, ignore contrast, okay? It's. It's only suggestive for legibility purposes. Okay. But again, you know, in. In creating this logo, we're not worried about legibility. We're looking for. For our own purposes. We know. We know the logo. If you feel that light gray is good on a white background. Dude, that's the point. That's the magic. That's. That's the chef's kids. This is what we do. Okay? So, you know, the nice thing is, it's like you can almost have hidden messages in there when you're doing light contrast. You know, dark grey on black, light gray on white, you know, like, so think this over before you guys start playing with those contrast hues, okay? Yeah. It's highly unnecessary. And when designing your logo, okay. Design it only for full color, not to work in black and white. Oh, now, now, there's some people, you know, like James Bernard who says, you know, and I quote, if a logo works in black and white, it's inherently stronger and more versatile. James, really? Come on, man. Says the guy who's never made a shitty logo. Like, come on, man. That's not what we do here. Okay? I say the more color. The more color effects you can put in there, the more trendy gradients you add to this. That's it. Right. Then good luck making it go black and white. James, just take that, okay, my friend. You just take that. Yeah, yeah. Built to last, my ass. All right. All right. Technical disasters, okay? Because, you know, the goal of this section here is to make sure your logo's broken before it even leaves your computer. Sweet. Right? Okay. So, you know, for example, make your logo in Photoshop. That's it. That's what Photoshop is for, people. Make it a nice rasterized logo with shapes. Okay. Make sure that vector files. This is all for nerds. No. Yeah. Whoever uses for vector. Look at me, I'm so smart, I'm using it. Yeah, Smart away. Okay. Nerd. Okay. Like what? So you can size it any way you want. The thing is, when you're in Photoshop, always looks good. Exactly. Right. A good JPEG on a white background. Okay. Is perfect when you hand that over because, you know, nobody can change it. Yeah. Nobody can stretch it. Foolproof. It's. This is the size it was intended to be, and this is the size you're going to be going to get it. Yes. So don't worry about this whole vector file thing. Okay. Don't even think about making it responsive. Oh, God, no. Okay. When you put that logo on that white background in Photoshop, you shouldn't be messing with the brand. That's what I. Yeah, that's what I, the designer intended. Right. If that's what I intended it to be. I. I'm sorry if the spot is a little favicon. Rink it, baby. Don't be all of a sudden skewing it. And don't remove separate parts. Can't leave parts out. Absolutely not. Right. That would be doing a disservice to the brand, to this great, great logo. Yeah. So. Absolutely not. Right. When you do send your logo to a customer, okay. Be sure to embed it in a word doc. Okay. So you take that JPEG on the beautiful white background, you embed it in that word box, and you send it over. And it's good to go. And it's good to go. Okay. It's good to go. Occasionally, they will ask you to put it, you know, in a vector file. Okay. And I mean, it's Amateurs. Yeah, amateurs. So, you know, when you do that, okay. You show them and do not outline your fonts. Oh, don't outline the fonts. You send it to them with their and then again this way, when they send it off to print. Oh, God, you're showing them who's boss, Opie. Because again, then. Then they're. They're like scrambling, like, hey, what's up with this font? It's not working. And do them a favor and don't respond for at least 24 hours. Make them sweat so they know that they're dealing. Yeah, they should earn their money. Well, yeah, yeah, again, right. You want me to put my raster bas in a vector format? The least I can do is send it to them without, you know, outline fonts. Forget it. Forget it. Yeah. And, you know, last but not least, you know, organization, file structure isn't a me problem now. It's a future moss problem. Okay. Yes. Yes. So don't worry about if you have to, you know, renaming your files, because honestly, final-final-final all caps-v2. FML.jpg is enough. It's this. Fine, just send it on like that. That's the steps. The necessary steps. It is, right? And it's showing that you have a process. Okay. And again, the money's in the process, guys. The money is in the process. Yeah, by the fourth final there, I was getting really angry. See? See, that's my process. That's really. I need a drink. Oh, yeah, yeah, you gotta take one. See, now you know why this stuff isn't available online. It's not that easy to come by. Yeah, no, this is some. This is some serious gold. I am learning a lot here today. And now a word from our sponsor. All right, designers, let's cut the bowl. How many times have you had a key killer website design, only to watch it fall apart because of code or developer telling you, no, no, no. Or maybe you've held back from web design altogether, thinking it's just too complicated and too technical or totally out of your wheelhouse. Either way, it's time for a change. WIX Studio is designed for designers, removing the barriers that limits your designs. 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Okay, this is the ethical dumpster file. Okay? Ethical. Because again, ethics are just polite suggestions. Oh yeah, okay. That we get from people who have no imagination. So, so ethics, methods, okay. In all fairness, okay. Like if you have the opportunity, steal logo designs from Fiverr, from Dribble. Okay. You know, from Google. Right. You could change a color, maybe change a little symbol, change an icon. But I mean, again, it's already out there. So boom. If I can just make, make it that much quicker by borrowing somebody else's and call it my own. Yeah. This is, this is how you do the world's worst logo. Yes. You know, this is a very, very, very fast moving technological age right now, right? Get AI to make the logo for you. Here we go. Prompt magic, buddy. Soulless and lifeless, right? Prompt in, export out. You could get the customer 20 high quality, horrible logos in their hands in five minutes using AI. Yes. So I mean, again, and the nice thing is, you know, oftentimes fonts already come stretched or skewed on that. Same with images. Contrast is often all. Everything that we've talked about usually is in that. So rock on, man. AI is your friend in this case. Yeah, absolutely. Plus you hardly had to do any work at all. That's, that's the best in doing. The worst suckers are the ones who are hand doing different variations. Come on. I know, right? Who wants to do up a hundred sketches? You know who? A.P. my friend. Yeah. You could do this easy peasy peasy when you have the opportunity. Okay. Use licensed images. Okay. Use licensed images and try to get it over that finish line to the customer before anybody finds out. Wow. Because then in the future, if there's lawsuits, they get stuck with it. They get stuck with it, not us. Nice. Right? And that's. And you know that it's coming. You know that they're coming. Yeah. Use that Getty image, right? Get rid of that watermark, please. They're not litigious. Not even close. Yeah. And, and of course, when you have the option, okay. Make your logo from a stock logo template that already exists. Okay? Dude, some of these stock, I, I'VE done my research. Some of these stock templates have already been used. 30, 40, 50. Must be good if you can take this template and just change a name, change a color and use it. Must be good. Everybody's using it. Yeah, well, why do you want to create something new? These guys. It's proven that this works. Yes, yes. And you're right there. Anyway, so just fit in with the crowd. Okay? Just follow the sheep, guys. Guaranteed. Change the name, no one's going to know. Oh, my God. You must be. You must be losing your mind of researching all this shit. For the record, oftentimes those stock templates, they don't outline their fonts also. So. See, they know the secrets. They know. Yes. Oh, my God. All right, all right. Okay. Over complicated and cluttered because people can actually recognize it at a glance. You failed. You failed. Okay? So if you can put your whole life story into that logo. Okay? Everything. The whole story, the whole brand story, everything that you can think of, put it in there. Okay? Hobbies, pets, your favorite sandwich, anything that you have got, put it in there even. Because again, that's what the beauty of logo. People will stop and give you 5, 10 minutes of their time looking at this logo for sure. Because I put so much into it. Yeah, yeah, of course they're going to want to figure that out. Yeah. You don't want them getting it right away. It's not. Needs a purpose. You want eyes on that, on that price, right? If it, if it's too easy, if, if they got it right away, then you've done, you've failed. It's too easy. It's too easy. Okay. When you have the options. Okay. When we're talking about over complicating stuff. Okay. Drop shadows. Okay. Bevels glow. Dude, nothing beats a good lens flare. Yeah. And. And again, we can do this because these logos are all vector based on a white back ground in as a jpeg. So this is the perfect combination to incorporate all of these things. We're not worried about making it work in black and white, James. No, no, no, no, no. Oh, I love this. The drop shadow on a JPEG with the lens flare is great. Okay. The more you can add in there. Oh, yeah. The better. Yes, always. That's why they put them in the Adobe suite, right? You got to use these things. That's right. Adobe put them in for a reason. Nobody knows. More layer there for logo design. For sure. All right. Oh, God. Almost done here. Almost done. Okay, we've got two sections left. This one is called low Quality and lazy. Because honestly, craftsmanship is overrated. Okay. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing badly. And lazy. And lazily. Okay. And lazily. So if you have the option, trace your logo from a Google image. Okay, Seriously? Pixelated plagiarism is in, guys. Apparently AI has been doing it to everybody. Apparently Fiverr and Behance and all these other services are doing it. So you can too. Okay. Don't be scared to just trace it. Nobody's going to find. Of course not. Right. Because everybody else is probably using the exact same. They're doing the same thing. Yeah, that's right. Okay. Low res files only to keep it looking authentic. You know, it's. This shows that you've actually thought this through. Okay? If it was. Everybody can use a high res photo. Yeah. But. But if it's blurred or pixelated, really rough looking, that shows that it's authentic. Okay? People look for these cues and really bad logos. And again, if the image is good, it might actually give you some bonus points. We're not looking for that right now, guys. No, no, no. You don't want it clear, legible. If people point it out to you and they're okay. Yeah. That image though looks a little blurry, a little pixelated. You're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. It's artsy. It's artsy. I meant it last time. I meant it that way. And again, since we're on the topic of low quality. Can do it. Create this in Ms. Paint. Okay, Seriously, nothing says low quality like Ms. Paint. And extra, extra bonus points if you can use the little spray can tool with a really bad. Remember that. You'd see that. That was hot. That was hot, guys. I remember doing gradients with that spray can. That's right. Oh, yeah. Throwing that into a logo. That is brilliant. I love it. I love the retro touch too. That's. That's very hip nowadays. All right, all right, last one. Okay. Jesus. Audience ignorance, okay? Because again, honestly, you don't care. You don't care. Forget about the audience. Punk rocker this. You don't give a. You. Yeah, okay. We're not looking to. To be the world's best designer with the world's best logo. World's worst logo by the world's best worst designer. Okay? Ignore the target audience, okay? If they try to tell you who that target audience is, don't let them tell you who it's for. You came to me. I'm building this the way I want to. For me. That's right. Okay. My vision. It's my vision. And, you know, the audience will come because they will see my logo and they'll see it my way. Exactly. I know it's a donut shop, but I want to put a skateboard in there. Of course. Yeah, right, of course. Because if you look a skateboard as a donut on the side, everybody's going to get that. Yes, everybody's going to get everybody. Everybody's going to get that. Trust me. Trust. Okay. And last but not least, guys. Oh, geez. When you have the opportunity, make it look like everybody else's logo. Trend right now. Okay. Google simplifying to a font. Burberry's going to a font. Okay. Everybody's going to. You go with that font. Okay. You make it so this logo is almost indistinguishable from everybody. Everybody else is okay again. The world needs more cookie cutter, boring logos, and that's why you're here, to provide more of them. Okay, that's. Yeah. So this is my exhaustive list. Okay. You want to be, you know, you. You want to be a logo legend designer. Okay. A legendary logo Designer. Follow these 25 ways on how to build the worst logo ever. Yes. Okay. Yes. Or if you actually want to keep your job, do the opposite. Just saying. But. Yeah, but this is a fun route also. This is not. I guess you want to be more like those awesome other guys. Fine, do the opposite. Okay, honestly. Oh, God. Yeah. I don't think. I don't think, honestly, there's anybody online teaching people how to be bad at logo design, how to be a bad logo design. This is a great. This is groundbreaking territory. Groundbreaking. Type this up and it's gonna pop up on the Internet. Oh, Jesus. That's funny. That is also sad, too, that there's that many shitty logos that. That it actually has, isn't it? It is. It is. And it's true. It is. Yeah. I don't know where they're coming from because there's so much amazing resources online on what to do. Right. That this is now officially the only first one on how to do it, so. Oh, geez. I hope you guys got a little kick out of this. I. I felt this was kind of a nice way to kind of ease back into things. This is great, man. I love. This is. This is. These are fun once in a while, right? A nice, easy life. It's summertime. You guys don't want to think too much. And for the first one back, I don't want to do too much either. Yeah, that's right. Exactly. Exactly. So yeah. Guys, you know what to do with this. Please share this with all the logo designers that you want to put out of business and share this with them. Okay? Yeah. Give us some of your examp, dude. Like, we want to see some of these bad, actually. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Oh, God. All right, you know where to find us, guys. We're on Instagram, we're on YouTube. You know, drop us a line, hit us on our website and. Yeah. And that's all I can say. And sign up for our newsletter because honestly, it's. It's growing fast and it's a lot of really great. Yeah, it's very good. Yeah, it's awesome. Cool. Nice. My name is Massimo. And my name is Sean. Stay creative and stay angry and stay far away from winning. Digs Sam. Sa. Sam.