Bad Graphic Design Mistakes To Avoid

Graphic design is a course that has several peaks and valleys but the valleys are filled with a lot of graphic design mistakes you should always avoid. However, these are mistakes every graphic designer has made at the starting point of their career.

Unfortunately, no one is immune to these bad graphic design mistakes. However, you can avoid them after you have read through this curated list of the common design mistakes that are made by beginners and designers in between.

Amateur designers who claim to be pros and vying for the attention of big companies for recruitment fail to understand these common graphic design mistakes of not using design elements effectively.

They also forget that the single goal of graphic design is the ability to effectively promote a product or service through the use of visual elements like shapes, images, colors, and text to inform, or appeal to the reader to respond to a call to action button.

Without much further ado, let’s jump right into the bad graphic design mistakes amateur designers make frequently.

Purpose

The Design purpose is pivotal when designing any project for your client, whether it is a logo design, flyer design, or poster design, it has to be aimed at achieving its objective. Failure to achieve a design purpose results in an awry design that poorly sends out the intended message. 

Take a look at these funny graphic design mistakes that were made by non-designers. Some of these design fails will make you laugh and some will make you question yourself if this were really made by graphic designers,

You should have sufficient insight into what your client wants from you as a graphic designer- if you are designing a logo, what objectives should the logo achieve, should it be for an intent to drive more sales, should it be aimed to increase conversion or targeted at a certain age demographic or create more recognition.

There are ways to acquire design insights from clients, this can be by issuing a design questionnaire which is also known as a design brief. A design brief contains all the needful questions which serve as guidelines for achieving the design goal.

How to avoid this graphic design mistake

To address the graphic design mistake of “lack of purpose” in graphic design, designers should start by understanding the project’s objectives and researching the client, industry, and target audience. 

A clear design brief should outline key messages and requirements. Conceptualize ideas, focusing on hierarchy, simplicity, and readability. Use visual design elements strategically to reinforce the message. 

Seek feedback from colleagues and the target audience, and iterate based on their input. Also, to avoid bad graphic design mistakes, designers need to stay informed about design trends and document design choices for future reference.

After completing the project, reflect on what worked well and what could be improved. This systematic approach ensures that designs are purposeful and effectively convey the intended message to the audience.

Lack of design diversity

A designer who sticks to one style of design obviously lacks design diversity. If you stick to one design pattern or style all the time, you won’t be seen as a multi-talented designer, one who can create various design styles or be conversant with using various color palettes.

It could deflate your portfolio impression from prospects because they feel you cling to just one design style. Clients want to see something new whenever they get on your page to view the latest design, it is your job to amaze them with effective design paired with versatility.

Adhering to one design style every time will make your design appear lopsided. Always try to mix things up with different design layouts, intriguing color palettes, and trending design styles that feature uniqueness.

How to avoid this graphic design mistake

Expand Visual Inspiration Sources

Instead of drawing inspiration solely from mainstream design trends, make an effort to explore a wider range of influences. Study design styles, art movements, and design history from various cultures and time periods. 

By doing so, you not only avoid this graphic design mistake but also infusing your work with fresh and unique design elements, resulting in a more diverse and appealing visual language.

Embrace Inclusivity

Inclusivity in graphic design means considering different perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences when creating visuals. It involves representing diverse genders, races, ages, abilities, and more in your designs. 

Prioritize inclusivity by conducting research and understanding the needs and expectations of various demographic groups. This approach ensures that your graphics resonate with a broad and diverse audience, fostering a sense of connection and relatability.

Experiment with Styles

Break free from the constraints of a single design style. Experiment with a variety of aesthetics, color palettes, and typography choices. 

Mixing and matching different styles can lead to innovative and visually diverse graphic designs. It allows you to tailor your visuals to specific projects and target audiences, ensuring that your work remains fresh and engaging.

Cultural Sensitivity

When incorporating elements from different cultures into your designs, exercise cultural sensitivity. Not considering cultural diversity in design is a huge graphic design mistake to avoid and could cause destructive damage. Respect the significance of these elements and avoid misappropriating or misrepresenting them.

Research and consult with individuals from those cultures to gain a deeper insight into their symbols, traditions, and meanings. This approach ensures that your design elements are used thoughtfully and respectfully.

Collaboration

Failure to collaborate with professionals from diverse backgrounds can endanger your design process. By working with people who bring different perspectives and experiences to the table, you can develop a more comprehensive understanding of your design projects.

These collaborations can lead to innovative solutions, broaden your creative horizons, and help you create designs that resonate with a wider range of audiences.

Design layout 

The design layout is one of the reasons why some designs fail and it makes them think graphic design is hard. Your design layout gives you a blueprint of your design goal which could sometimes be drawn out on paper.

Your design layout gives you a planned structuring of how elements in a design are placed next to each other, their relativity, and how the overall layout appearance further conveys the intended message in a coherent and effective manner.

We can spot the effectiveness of design on classic newspaper Layout. With its justified alignment of text for ease of reading, visually appealing text blocks with properly assigned whitespace between them.

As the first point of attraction and adherence to the principle of hierarchy, the use of bigger text for the purpose of headlines is to inform readers of the main topic of the design.

Still adhering to the rule of hierarchy and the general layout of your design, a sub-heading comes next beneath your main title which houses your body text.

Unless you have mastered your layout design, then this might not be a big deal for you. However, no matter the design, you can’t sweep hierarchy under the rug.

But if you are a beginner, you need to first map out the structure of how you intend your design to follow as well as the organization of the various elements in your design.

How to avoid this graphic design mistake

Creating an effective design layout involves several key considerations. First, it’s crucial to understand the purpose and audience of your project. This knowledge guides the decision on how to place elements hierarchically, grid systems, typography, color schemes, and alignment. Maintaining visual balance, consistency in design elements, and responsiveness for different devices is also essential.

Iteration and attention to detail, including whitespace and focal points, contribute to a polished layout that effectively communicates the intended message.

A successful layout is one that strikes a balance between aesthetic appeal and functionality. By following these principles, designers can ensure that their layouts not only look visually pleasing but also serve their intended purpose, whether for print or digital media.

Color

Color is an essential graphic design element that can not be denied attention. Failure to not pay attention to your design color palette will result in a gruesome design outcome.

Despite the success of other design elements, when the wrong color palette is chosen, the design turns out a failure.

Most businesses and brands harness the power of color as an element used to arouse their customers’ purchasing behavior. The color they choose in their product packaging, brand color, website, apps, and every other tangible brand asset influences how customers perceive the brand’s originality.

The color you have chosen to apply to your brand’s products or your brand’s tangible assets influences the emotions of your customers. Based on what each color represents in various cultures of the world, people react differently.

In the Western part of the world, various colors represent various meanings. White (peace, purity, cleanliness), Red(danger, energy, power, hot) Yellow(joy, ready, fruitfulness) and so many others.

As humans we tend to respond to certain emotions based on colors, we create a perception and react to them both physically and mentally. However, across all the various global cultural groups, each color has its distinctive color interpretation which they use in describing life events, occurrences, messages, and so on.

How to avoid this graphic design mistake

If you adhere to the principles of color harmony or color theory, your coloring process will not be as difficult as rocket science. When making color choices, especially as a beginner, it is advisable you refer back to the color theory which acts as an instructional manual to how color effectively performs.

The colors theory educates you on the science behind color and how its application can trigger a certain emotion in human psychology. However, you should also be mindful of the meaning of colors as it cuts through various cultural regions.

Font

Fonts play big roles as graphic design elements, and they influence the success of a design project. Fonts choices aren’t made arbitrarily because a particular font is your favorite.

Your font choice should be made based on proper association and coherence with a particular project and must be legible, its purpose is to evoke the reader’s emotion, make a product taste good, and even set the mood even before customers consume a product.

Most times amateur designers fail to realize this graphic design mistake, they feel if a randomly picked font works for them, then it will work for the product or design in question.

All fonts have meaning and serve a particular purpose in various design contexts, they set the mood for the particular design project they are used for, they can carry a certain type of message or tone, and they can even tell you to run for your life or stay away from a danger zone.

Generally, there are five classifications of font types – Serif, San serif, Scripts, Slab serif, and Decorative. All five classifications have their various purpose where they are legible and most effective. Serif and San serif fonts basically work well for header and or title usage. However, they can also be used as body text when the design context requires it.

Script fonts won’t favor the design if they are used on the body text because Script fonts are mostly used for the title text aesthetics in decorating a title or sometimes used as a drop cap.

Font mismatch

Using fonts that don’t pair with the theme of the design project or logo is a common graphic design mistake done by amateurs. Fonts should be paired correctly just as how colors should. Doing this enhances the overall design legibility and also promotes a better visual appeal.

Think about how a serif font would appear when used on a design project targeted at kids, it will appear too serious and will make the design ineligible. When going for such a design, you should pick a font family like the handmade or script font with a whimsy characteristic paired with a San serif font.

Too many fonts

Too many fonts in one design is an eyesore for the most part, and secondly, it goes against graphic design principles. This is one of the graphic design problems for students who are just starting up their design careers.

Having too many fonts confuses the reader, makes the design boring, and also makes the reader easily lose interest in reading the remaining information on the design. Always avoid this design mistake make use of a maximum of 3 fonts paired with various font sizes to enhance design contrast and hierarchy.

Unless you have mastered the skill of pairing various font families together to mash well with each other while maintaining their effective nature of readability and legibility and also avoiding confusing the reader.

Font scaling

Font scaling is like committing a serious crime in graphic design. Amateur designers do this often not realizing the level of damage it will cause to their personal development and design.

Font scaling shouldn’t be done for any reason. Scaling the font makes the font lose its original form thereby making your design look unprofessional.

Scaling your font makes it lose its original nature and intended message thereby causing invalidity in design. All fonts should be scaled proportionally by holding down the ALT key to avoid a stretchy font appearance.

Kerning

Poor letter kerning is one mistake made by a majority of designers, which isn’t right. Kerning is the letter spacing between your characters that help promote readability and give a more visual appeal.

While kerning is seen to be insignificant, it affects the overall look of your design without you even noticing. Be sure to make little kerning adjustments when next you make use of your favorite font in Photoshop.

Just in case you missed our latest article which includes the best font creation software and the best graphic design software for 2023, you can check it out real quick. It is sure helpful.

Clipping images on text

Some designers might find it randomly cool because they feel they like it and it’s going to be liked by the audience as well. But in a real sense, they are distorting the Image and its ability to promote its intended message, it will lose eligibility and also turn off the reader. 

If the design in question demands it as a design objective or necessity, make sure there is enough contrast between the image and the text and also every other element in the background and foreground.

How to avoid this graphic design mistake

Using too many fonts on a design is one of the common graphic design mistakes made by amateur designers. Making this graphic design mistake makes your design look unprofessional and below professional acceptable standards. As a designer, you should keep the number of fonts to a minimum – not more than 3 font variations.

This way the design appears more appealing and legible to read. Making the design mistake of using too many fonts makes the design disoriented.

Hierarchy 

Your design should be well structured to help the reader understand what comes first and second, what is the most important element, and the less important but not the least. They should be guided by the hierarchy of how information on the design should be read through the power of hierarchy.

Are you creating a poster design for a party event? You should place the main element at the top or middle area of the artboard and then other informative elements should follow accordingly in size.

Pivotal elements could be set to be a focal point by scaling their size to be much bigger than others or applying a catchy color to gain the viewer’s eye on that element first.

How to avoid this graphic design mistake

To avoid this graphic design mistake, here’s the trick – always make sure you place the elements in your design in a hierarchical manner. Place the most important elements you want viewers to notice should be placed at the top, made as a focal point, or be the biggest in size. 

Amateur designers who fail to apply hierarchy in their design miss out on its impact in making their design appealing to viewers.

Alignment

All elements on the artboard must be relatively organized. Organizing how your elements align with each other across the design workspace is crucial because the human brain subconsciously enjoys seeing things being brought into a proper arrangement, use that as an idea and apply it to your design.

It’s called design for this reason and you need to pledge to that by making your elements align properly. Alignment should be made on your text, shapes, images, etc

Symmetry

Previously I talked about alignment which somehow relates to elements being in proper Symmetry with each other, right? But do you know your design can be boring if you stick to making your design appear absolutely symmetrical?

it is a good rule of thumb that every element on your design should be in a good form of symmetry with other elements but it won’t hurt if you explore new ways to capture your viewer’s interest by going asymmetrical with the way your elements appear on your design, this way you shift their expectation from the usual to something surprisingly new.

Design is about creativity and going out of the box but still adhering to those design guidelines and principles is a sure way to wow your audience and stand out.

How to avoid this graphic design mistake

Symmetry plays a pivotal role in avoiding common graphic design mistakes. Here are several ways you can apply symmetry in graphic design.

Symmetrical Layouts: One of the most common approaches is to use symmetrical layouts, where elements are evenly balanced on either side of a central axis. This can be achieved through the use of grids, columns, and precise alignment. Symmetrical layouts often convey a sense of stability and formality, making them suitable for corporate and traditional designs.

Radial Symmetry: In this approach, elements radiate outward from a central point, creating a circular or star-like pattern. Radial symmetry can draw attention to a focal point and is often used in logos and decorative designs. It provides a sense of unity and balance that is visually pleasing.

Bilateral Symmetry: This is perhaps the most straightforward form of symmetry, where elements are mirrored on either side of a vertical axis. It’s commonly used in creating posters, flyers, and brochures. Bilateral symmetry creates a clear and balanced composition, making it easy for viewers to navigate the design.

Asymmetrical Symmetry: Paradoxically, asymmetry can also be a form of symmetry. Asymmetrical balance involves distributing elements unevenly but still achieving a sense of balance through careful consideration of visual weight, color, and size. This approach adds dynamism and interest to designs, often seen in contemporary and artistic projects.

Reflective and Rotational Symmetry: Reflective symmetry involves flipping an element to create a mirror image, while rotational symmetry involves rotating an element around a central point. These techniques are used to create intricate patterns and designs, often found in textiles, wallpapers, and ornamental motifs.

Golden Ratio and Fibonacci Sequence: These mathematical principles can be applied to achieve a pleasing sense of proportion and balance in graphic design. They provide guidelines for sizing and arranging elements to create a visually harmonious composition.

Color mode(RGB or CMYK)

Color mode is the color setting you apply to a design file when you want to begin a design project, this is crucial when the design in question will be used for the purpose of the physical world event.

This color mode is split into two. Additive colors (RGB-Red, Green, Blue) and subtractive colors (CMYK- Cyan (Aqua), Magenta (Pink), Yellow, Key (Black). Your color mode choice is based on whether the design project would be for screen usage or print usage.

If you’re designing a project for print, always place your color mode on CMYK because printers only understand color accurately and print effectively using this mode, while RGB mode should be selected only when you intend to use a design project solely for digital screens viz – smartwatches, mobile screens, monitors.

Unfortunately, some designers take this as less of a problem and fail to take this into consideration. 

How to avoid this graphic design mistake

If you adhere to the principles of color or color theory, your coloring process will go smoothly. When making color choices especially when you are a beginner, it is advisable you refer back to the color theory which acts as an instructional manual to how color can be used effectively.

The colors theory educates you on the science behind color and how its application can strike a certain emotion in human psychology and also send meaning. However, you should also be mindful of the meaning of Colors as it cuts through various cultural regions.

Copy-cat-ing

I’m not sure if there’s a word like “copy-cat-ing” but I’m sure there are designers who copy the work of other designers and claim it to be theirs, you know what I’m talking about. It’s tempting sometimes to indulge in this act but it’s rewarding if you overcome them.

You should never have a second thought about trying to steal the idea of another graphic designer. That’s one of the unforgiving graphic design mistakes made by some designers, and it only makes you less of an excellent graphic designer.

It’s a serious transgression that doesn’t only bring shame to you as a designer but also decreases your skill, you will seize to develop as a designer when you always steal from other people’s ideas.

Instead, if you love a poster design or logo design of another designer, you should fetch inspiration from what that designer has done, pick what inspires you the most from the designer’s work, and use it as inspiration to simply make your design better.

How to avoid this graphic design mistake

No company or brand wants to work with a designer that steals from other designers. Amongst all the graphic design mistakes, copycatting is one that is very hard and tempting to overcome. Copycatting only spoils your reputation as a graphic designer.

Avoiding this design mistake is by always practicing, reading design books, collaborating with other designers, and staying up to date with design trends and software. It’s okay if you fetch inspiration from mother designers and use that inspiration to create something brand new. But definitely not stealing.

White space

White space or negative space wasn’t introduced just for the sake of ticking the box to justify that you have whitespace on your design. Instead for the purpose of enhancing your design to be legible for the audience, improve readability, and also draw their focus to the intended focal point, message, or series of information being set hierarchically.

Noted as one of the graphic design problems designers face frequently, especially beginners who have little or no knowledge of the importance of whitespace in design and how it influences design appearance.

It can easily make or break your design when done incorrectly or not done at all. This is one of the graphic design mistakes we all made at some point during our early kickoff. 

Elements on your artboard have the right to breathe by being spaced out evenly to improve a more enjoyable visual experience for the viewer.

The first time a prospect visits your company website homepage or landing page, the first things they come across are the few elements on the page. The way the elements are carefully spaced out between each other influences the stay time of that prospect.

When the fonts, images, paragraphs, and columns on your homepage are poorly spaced between each other, the prospect tends to leave your site. This is because white space subconsciously makes your design intriguing and visually appealing.

There are two types of whitespace-

Macro White Space

This type of negative is found between big design elements like images, paddings, columns, and other obvious graphic elements. 

Micro White Space 

On the other hand, micro negative space is the kind of space that can be found between smaller graphic elements like text, paragraphs, icons, and buttons. 

Treat white space like every other element on your artboard and you will see improvement in your design game. Take the Google homepage for example.

How to avoid this graphic design mistake

Known as one of the common graphic design mistakes amateurs make frequently, it advised you to utilize its powerful impact on your design ASAP. Whitespace lets your design be more understandable and also helps it look professional as it allows the elements to breathe and stand out.

• Leaving space between text blocks to make them legible and enhance the user experience.
• Use whitespace around objects to create a visual buffer and make them look more professional
• Use whitespace around elements to create order and help readers know their relationships.

Inconsistency

You should always watch out for repetitive usage of elements across all your design process. If you have chosen a particular kind of design theme for your website or any design project, for example – you should continuously apply that same pair of fonts or color palette all across your design environment.

One of the worst graphic design mistakes some designers make is the failure to not constantly keep their readers in that steady flow of visual appeal, same elements should be repetitively used to help viewers easily browse through your design with less effort.

Your design should easily be understood by viewers so they have a clear idea that every part and parcel of your design content coalesces, and they are created with deliberate intent for consistency.

Don’t confuse your viewer by mixing things carelessly. When you arbitrarily apply varieties of elements that are not similar to each other, this will make your design clash thereby confusing the viewer.

For example, One characteristic of good web design has to do with the repetitive usage of a certain style of text, image, buttons, shapes, icons, etc. Steady usage of the same elements all across your design creates harmony and enhances legibility.

How to avoid this graphic design mistake

You can avoid inconsistency in design by making sure that there is a steady rhythm or flow with the application of elements across various areas of your design. For instance, using a minimum of 2-3 fonts of the same family but different variations in sizes when designing a website can help create consistency and will help readers understand the relationships of various parts of your design.

Inconsistency can also be present in the way you apply patterns, shapes, colors, lines, and whitespace, etc.

Proofreading

Hopefully, I am not the only one who makes this design mistake when working on a design project. We make mistakes, and that’s okay(it’s very human). But don’t use it as a privilege or see it to be less of a big issue when designing.

Proofreading failure is another destructive graphic design problem. Always make sure you proofread your work to find errors that weren’t spotted earlier before sending it to your client.

You can also give a copy of your work to a friend or a stranger to help analyze your work, they might luckily find some errors you failed to spot at first.  

A mistake could cost you or your client a lot of money and also cost you as a designer time to meet up with other design jobs. Crosscheck texts, elements, shapes, and other crucial elements before the final round-up.

How to avoid this graphic design mistake

Another common graphic design mistake designers make is failing to proofread the text in their design. Making sure that everything is well spelled can cause expensive harm to brands.

Before you send out your final work to your client for final conclusion. Always make sure you thoroughly proofread inside out and you can also double-check by giving the design to two or three persons in your company to read before confidently sending out those files to the client. 

Delivery failure

A promise about a design project is one thing, and delivering is another. You should be a designer who keeps to word, don’t wait for injury time to come before delivering a client’s project, or else they will lose trust and reliability in you. Clients don’t only demand for graphic designer who is skilled but also demand a timely graphic designer. Before you give a client a delivery date, be sure the date given to them is right for you and the client.

How to avoid this graphic design mistake

You can avoid delivery failure by making sure that you have a healthy work process ethic which will enable you to focus more on important tasks and knock off every distraction or creative block.

Always start by defeating the heavy task first and then the less difficult and also try to be ahead of time by requesting extra days or weeks from your client right from the beginning of his or her project.

For instance, when you think of how much time a project will take before it’s delivered, I’m talking about the complexity and the circumstances surrounding the design e.g. resources, teamwork, etc. It is very okay to adjust the delivery time. Ask your client for more days to enable you to carry out the job effectively

Images on a design tell a thousand words even before you read the texts that are found in the design. But always make sure that they are of high quality when you make use of them in your design. Crystal clear images enhance the look and feel of your design as well as make it look professional. 

There are many websites stocked with free high-quality images you can download without trouble from copyright infringement.

Image copyright

The internet is filled with lots of booby traps. One of these is the unauthorized usage of a copyright-protected image exclusively owned by another user or company.

This is one of the dangerous graphic design mistakes that designers ignorantly fail to avoid. Never make use of a copyrighted image owned by another individual or company, it could land you serious legal problems or even cost you a bad reputation for your brand.

Watermark images

Simply don’t use watermark images. This is a one-way ticket to legal problems like I said earlier, if you need an image resource that has been embedded with a watermark, you need to genuinely pay for it and get the copyright-free version from the website. 

However, no client would want you as a designer to use a watermarked image for their design project because it could either be of low quality or as well get them into serious trouble. Avoid these graphic design mistakes for a better design experience and development self-development.

How to avoid this graphic design mistake

Using stock images is one of the most practiced graphic design mistakes amateurs always make. Using stock images isn’t bad what’s bad is when you use a cheap stock image that is been used by so many design projects. You can simply avoid joining this embarrassing bandwagon by purchasing a premium image used by very few designers for our design project. This way your design stands out uniquely and fresh to your client. 

Bleed

If you are new to printing, I’m sure you will be unfamiliar with the term bleed, you are not alone, I was confused too when I heard it first.

However, Printing bleeds are safe zones assigned around the edges of your design which informs the printer to avoid printing further than the assigned zone.

While it is unfeasible to manually cut out the edges of a print job afterward thereby leaving the print-out design project with jagged edges, the bleed will safely stay off from the assigned bleed zone and print only areas within the safe zone

When setting up your printing bleed, it requires you to apply the industry standard measurement of 25 to 125 bleed size horizontally and vertically or you can get the bleed printer measurement from your printing press. you should read more on printing bleed to get a deeper understanding of how the whole thing works.

How to avoid this graphic design mistake

Printing requires proper bleed setup before printing. Here are tips to set printing bleed

• Document Setup: Start by opening your design software (e.g., Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop) and create a new document with the dimensions required for your project.
• Determine Bleed Size: Identify the bleed size required by your print service provider or project specifications. Common bleed sizes are 1/8 inch (0.125 inches) or 3mm, but they can vary. Check with your printer for specific guidelines.
• Extend Design Elements: Expand your background colors, images, and design elements beyond the trim edge by the specified bleed size. Ensure that these elements seamlessly continue beyond the trim line to prevent any unwanted white edges after trimming.
• Crop Marks: Add crop marks to your document to indicate where the final trim will occur. Crop marks help the printer align and cut your design accurately. Many design software tools allow you to automatically generate crop marks.
• Export or Save: When saving or exporting your design for print, be sure to include the bleed area. Most design software will have an option to include bleed in the export settings. Save the file in a format that is suitable for printing (e.g., PDF/X-1a for professional printing).
• Review and Proof: Before sending your design to the printer, carefully review it to ensure that all essential elements are within the safe area (inside the trim edge) and extend into the bleed area as needed. Double-check that your crop marks are correctly placed.
• Communication with Printer: Communicate with your print service provider and share the bleed requirements you’ve followed. They will appreciate your attention to detail and ensure that your printed materials turn out as expected.