Logo misuse / incorrect usage

The guidelines page showing your logo stretched, recolored, and shadowed, each crossed out, so nobody has to guess what 'don't' means.

the don't-do-this pagelist of logo no-noslogo dos and don'tswhat not to do with the logoforbidden logo usagelogo missuseincorrect logo examplesthe page with red Xs over the logo

See it

Live demo coming soon

What it is

A spread in the brand guidelines that renders your own logo being abused, each version crossed out. The usual cast: non-uniform scaling (stretched or squashed), rotation, recoloring outside the approved colorways, added effects (drop shadow, bevel, glow, outline), the wordmark re-typeset in a lookalike font, the lockup rearranged, content crowding into the clear space, and the mark dropped on a busy photo with no contrast.

Reach for it at handoff, the moment assets leave your hands. Showing only correct usage does not work: people cannot infer the boundary from one good example, and they will happily invent a vertical version at 4pm on a Friday. Seeing the bad version drawn is what makes the rule stick.

Two gotchas. A 'don't' with no fix attached gets broken anyway, so pair every forbidden treatment with the approved variant that solves that situation (tight space, dark background, one-color print). And keep the red X baked into the image, because these thumbnails get screenshotted out of the PDF and mistaken for approved artwork.

Ask AI for it

Design a 'logo misuse' spread for a brand guidelines document: a 3x3 grid of the same logo, one forbidden treatment per cell, each with a red X overlay and a short caption. Cover stretching, squashing, rotating, off-brand recoloring, drop shadow or bevel effects, re-typesetting the name in a different font, rearranging the lockup, violating clear space, and placing it on a low-contrast photo. Keep the page neutral (white background, small grey captions) so the wrong versions never look appealing.

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brand guidelinesclear spacelockupprimary logomaster artwork