Update: I fixed my client's 'muddy' logo by picking one color to be the boss
A client in Reno kept saying her logo looked muddy and I could not figure out why. Every color in it was the same saturation and brightness, so nothing stood out and it just turned to gray mush when I squinted at it. I tried making one color darker and one lighter on a hunch and suddenly the whole thing read fine at small sizes. Then I wrote down the trick for myself: pick one hero color, let the rest be supporting actors. Has anyone else dealt with this, where the colors are fine on their own but fight each other once they sit next to each other?