Common Design Mistakes To Avoid By Designers in 2024

You must have heard the popular phrase that goes like this – a picture is worth a thousand words only if it is presented perfectly.

This is 100 per cent true. Badly depicted visuals can be crucially detrimental to your efforts. Whether you are exercising your graphics on social media posts, website layouts, or tailoring a balanced marketing campaign, there are a lot of rules that you need to keep in mind.

The graphic design rules when followed perfectly, can increase the visibility of your business, develop goodwill, build loyalty, and a lot more.

On the contrary, if there are mistakes in your graphic design, then your brand power, loyalty, reach, effectiveness, and other required things will face a negative impact.

Now, you certainly do not want that to happen, now, do you?

If you are shaking your head, then take it as your cue to read this blog till the very end. In this blog, we have explored some of the worst design mistakes that can destroy any brand.

Having a proper knowledge of such mistakes is what will help you stay on top of the visual marketing game.

Let us look into this matter, shall we?

Never Commit These Mistakes In Your Designers Career

Mistake No. 1 – Using Too Many Fonts

The first mistake a lot of beginner designers make is that they use a lot of fonts in their projects. This thing can cause the message to be difficult to understand as it does not follow any particular font psychology. All of this can result in making your overall design extremely distracting. There are a lot of elements that make your design look amateur.

This also applies to logo design, incorporating a lot of fonts to your logo, will make it look amateur, rather, you can restrict yourself to one or two fonts that complement one another. Pro Tip? Always use the same font but with different weights. It will make your design look professional, cleaner, and with a clear message. If you are not confident with your design skills, you can always lean into any reputable designing agency in UAE.

Mistake No. 2 – Never Use A Visual Hierarchy

Whenever you are designing a website, poster, or any visual asset you have to understand what is the actual message you wish to transmit and what is the most significant information. In this department, we have to use a visual hierarchy to organise different elements. Doing this makes it pretty convenient for the viewer to understand all the information.

A lot of newbie designers don’t apply a visual hierarchy to their designs. This makes it look extremely chaotic and difficult to identify, the most crucial information as their mind is jumping from one side to another without any proper order. So, this is why, it is best to learn the visual hierarchy principles and apply them to your design to tailor order.

Mistake No. 3 – Choosing The Wrong Colors

You might be aware of the fact that colors have their own meaning and are associated with different emotions and feelings. One of the most common mistakes made by new designers is to opt for the wrong color for their design. This makes their overall message difficult to understand or makes the viewer perceive any other message. Rather, it is always a nice idea to have a clear understanding of color psychology and learn the different meanings of colours.

Another blunder made by beginners is that they completely ignore the color theory. As a result, they tend to use bad colour palettes, making the design appear amateur and bad. Moreover, if you use a lot of vibrant and bold colours without using any contrast, this is going to make your design difficult to look at. So, every designer must learn the colour theory to understand how different colours interact with one another and use different colour palettes.

Mistake No. 4 – Designing Projects For The Wrong Medium

Picture this – some new designers are working on a project. If they are using one colour palette it might look great on their screens. However, while printing the design the colours do not look as good as they appeared on the screen.

This means one thing – There are a lot of chances that the colours you use in your design software, do not look as vibrant on the paper. This is a major error made by newbies – they tend to design for the wrong medium and opt for the incorrect colour mode.

All of this can be easily revised by knowing in which medium your design will be available. If it is printed media, you need to tailor your document in CMYK colour mode. Whereas, if it is for digital media like websites or social media, you need to use RGB. By doing so, you will avoid a lot of inconvenient shocks.

Mistake No. 5 – Save In The Wrong File Format

There are two different types of image files:

1. Vectors – These image files are made up of curves and geometric lines
2. Raster images – On the contrary, these ones are entirely made up of pixels

The main difference between these files is that the raster images will lose their quality whereas, vectors can be scaled to any size without losing their quality. A common blunder made by new designers and non-designers is that by end up saving their designs in the wrong format. For instance, if they need to save a logo design in .svg or .pdf, by opting .jpeg for. This makes their work lose its quality when it is scaled. Have you got the point? If you are clueless about which file format to choose for your project, feel free to contact online designing services and ask for their guidance.

Mistake No. 6 – Not Proof Reading

Picture this – you have finally made the last strokes on your project design. After that, you send it to get printed. One day while walking down the streets, you saw your poster on a wall. All giddied up you leapt to take a detailed look at it. All your excitement comes to an end when you see that instead of “First” you wrote “Third”, making the entire invite date wrong.

This mistake can happen to anyone, as this has nothing to do with skills. However, not paying enough attention can impact this a lot. Thus, to steer clear of this nasty situation, you need to make it your habit to proofread your work not once, but multiple times. By doing this, you can ensure that there are no silly mistakes in your project.

Mistake No. 7 – Rely Too Much On Design Trends

A lot of design trends look extremely stunning. Many of these designs are there to stay for a lot of years, however, others might become a sensation for only a couple of months. This factor can make those designs that have used these trends look extremely out of fashion, even if they are made recently. This is exactly why, as a professional designer, you must never rely a lot on these constantly changing trends. Doing so can make your work look quite average and would not spark much interest in the audience.

• What is the most common design mistake?

One of the most common mistakes observed by designers is improper line spacing.

• How can I avoid common design mistakes?

Here is how you can steer clear of common design mistakes:

1. Know the codes
2. Plan ahead
3. Check and test
4. Be creative
5. Learn from mistakes
6. Update your skills and much more

• What are the 5 most common mistakes designers make?

Some of the common design mistakes are:

1. Using too many fonts
2. Not using a visual hierarchy
3. Choosing wrong colours
4. Designing for the wrong medium and a lot more
5. Save in the wrong file format

• What makes a design good?

Incorporating visually pleasing elements can make any design look good. They can create a perfect sense of balance and harmony. It uses composition and typography efficiently to tailor a perfect look.

Summing It All Up!

We do agree that designing can make anyone nervous, especially the ones who are new to this field. However, by knowing all about the common design mistakes, you can easily get rid of them. The more you know, the better you can polish your creative briefs, and collaborate with your designer. So, start right now and be mindful of the mistakes we just mentioned above and you will be good to go in no time at all.