My buddy's logo redesign had 14 fonts in one file

I was helping a friend in Denver fix up his food truck branding. He sent me the logo file. Opened it up and counted 14 different fonts crammed into one design. Some were script, some were comic sans style, total chaos. I stripped it down to two fonts and a simple icon of a taco. Has anyone else seen a client cram that many fonts into one logo without realizing how bad it looks?

2 comments

2 Comments

leo_price7d ago

The real kicker is that 14 fonts usually means zero hierarchy in the mind of the designer (if you can call that a designer). They're just throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, probably thinking more fonts equals more "creative." I've seen this with a buddy's real estate logo that had 8 fonts, a clip art house, and a swoosh that didn't match anything. The worst part is that food truck folks often pay a friend's nephew $50 for this stuff, and then the logo looks like a ransom note glued onto the side of a taco truck. You did the right thing stripping it down, a simple taco icon and two fonts probably saved his whole brand from looking like a messy garage sale.

nathanking6d ago

Started stripping down a friend's BBQ sauce label last year that had 11 fonts and a cartoon pig wearing a top hat. I just picked one bold font for the name and one clean script for "since 2012" and suddenly the whole thing looked legit. What @leo_price said about hierarchy is spot on - having less stuff actually makes people take your brand more seriously. Its wild how a simple taco icon and two matching fonts can turn a mess into something you'd actually want to eat from.