You've probably seen it before. A potential customer has looked over your business card or seen your truck drive by. They then head to your website to learn more about you, but something feels off. The colours don't quite match. The logo looks different. Nothing seems to connect. It’s like a completely different business!
That disconnect is creating a not-so-positive first impression of your business, and it's costing you credibility before anyone even talks to you.
We've worked with hundreds of small businesses over the years, and I can tell you this: most business owners know they need good branding. But somewhere between that realization and execution, things go sideways. There are too many cooks in the kitchen; there are too many logo files floating around; there was too much time between now and the last refresh. Whatever the reason, something went wrong with your branding.
If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. Here are five branding mistakes we see all the time and how you can avoid them.
Mistake 1. Treating Branding as an Afterthought
This is the big one. A plumber starts their business, buys a truck, gets some tools, and then—oh yeah—better slap a logo on that truck. So they head to the sign shop, someone whips up a design in five minutes, and that becomes the brand.
Fast forward a few years. The business has grown to 20 service trucks and 50 employees. But now they're stuck with branding that doesn't represent where they are today. And changing it? That means redoing signage on every truck, updating the building, and reprinting everything. It's expensive.
If you can just do this early on in your business career and just make an investment—and that's not a huge investment, by the way—it pays off over and over again.
Think of branding as infrastructure, not decoration. Get it right from the start, and it works for you for years to come.
Mistake 2. Designing for Yourself Instead of Your Audience
I've seen this happen more times than I can count. A business owner falls in love with a particular colour or style because it's their personal preference. But you're not designing this brand for yourself. You're designing it for your customers.
Your brand needs to resonate with the people you're trying to reach. That means understanding who they are, what they value, and what makes them trust a business enough to work with them.
It might be hard to hear, but if your brand doesn't speak to your audience, it doesn't matter how much you personally like it.
Mistake 3. Inconsistency Across Platforms
This is where things really fall apart. Your logo looks one way on your website, another way on your business cards, and completely different on your truck. Maybe you've had five different people design things over the years. Maybe you just grabbed whatever version of the logo was handy at the time.
That inconsistency kills your credibility. People make snap judgments based on what they see. If your brand looks disorganized, they assume your business is disorganized too.
I know when I'm searching for a service on Google, I skip right over businesses that don't look professional. It's not fair, maybe, but it's reality. People judge you on visual appearance alone.
Whether someone sees you online, on the road, or in person, it should be immediately recognizable and consistent.
Mistake 4. Ignoring Scalability and Functionality
A logo might look great on the side of a building, but put it on a business card, and suddenly it's unreadable. Or maybe it works fine in colour, but when you need a black-and-white version for a newspaper ad, it falls apart.
We always test and set up logos in different sizes and formats. Can it be reversed on a dark background? Does it work in monochrome? Can it scale down to fit on a pen or scale up to cover a billboard?
These aren't just design niceties. They're practical considerations that affect how you can actually use your brand in the real world.
My rule of thumb is that if it works in a very small format, like on a business card, it will likely work on a larger format. But the other way around, not so much.
Extra tip: Make sure you have more than just JPEG or PNG files of your logo. You need the working vector files so your logo can be used anywhere.
Mistake 5. Skipping the Strategy
This might be the most important one. Too many businesses jump straight to "What colour should the logo be?" without doing the groundwork first.
At EDGE, we have a saying: strategy before tactics. Before we design anything, we sit down with you and get to know your business. Who are you trying to reach? Who are your competitors? What applications will this brand need to work on? What emotions do you want to convey?
We put all of that into a brief and get you to sign off on it before any design work happens. Why? Because nothing is more frustrating—or expensive—than getting halfway through the design process and realizing you're headed in the wrong direction.
The brief keeps everyone aligned. It gives us a clear target to aim for and a reference point if questions come up later.
So, if you are thinking of creating a new brand, start with strategy.
Getting Your Branding Right
If you're reading this and thinking, "Yep, my brand has some—or all—of these problems," don't panic. It's fixable.
Start by taking an honest look at what you have. Does it appeal to your target audience? Is it consistent? Does it work across different applications? Are you proud of it?
If the answer to any of those questions is no, it might be time to invest in doing it right. That doesn't always mean starting from scratch. Sometimes it's about refining what you have. But sometimes it's a complete rebrand.
The point is that your brand is either working for you or against you. And if it's not helping you build credibility and connect with customers, it's costing you opportunities.
We'd love to help you figure out where you stand. Reach out to us and let's talk about what a professional brand could do for your business.
January 22, 2026
Posted By Pieter Luong
Creative Director
Pieter graduated from Fanshawe College’s Graphic Design program in 2010 and has been applying his knowledge and creativity ever since. Pieter has a spectacular ability for creating eye-catching designs that “stand out from the crowd”. He is passionate about developing marketing materials that are consistent in brand while effectively communicating the messages they were created for.
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