We see it all the time. A startup launches its product, invests in development, in its team, in its funding round, and then rushes its branding in three days on Canva. Or worse, hands it to someone who produces something decent, clean, harmless, and utterly forgettable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Branding isn't a box to tick before getting to the serious stuff. It's often the first thing an investor, a client, or a partner sees of you. And in French-speaking Switzerland, where the market is small and reputations travel fast, a weak visual identity costs more than you'd think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here are the five mistakes we come across most often, and what to do instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Platforms like Canva have democratized design. That's a good thing. The problem is that thousands of companies use the same templates, with the same fonts, the same layouts, the same visual structures. The result: everyone looks alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Using a template isn't a mistake in itself. Not adapting it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A template is a starting point, not a finished product. You have to bend it, rebuild it around your identity, change its proportions, its hierarchy, its colors, its typography. If your visual still looks 80% like the original template, you haven't done design, you've filled out a form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What to do instead:<\/strong> use the template as a base grid only. Systematically change the typography, the color palette, the spacing, and the information hierarchy. If you don't know how, that's the moment to bring in someone who does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n It's one of the most common and most counterproductive reflexes. The logo, big, top and center, on every visual, every slide, every piece. As if saying your name loudly and often were enough to make it stick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The reality: no one looks at your logo. People look at what you tell them, what you promise them, what you show them. A logo is a recognition cue, not a message. It should be present, discreet, consistent, and leave room for what really matters: the content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A pitch deck where the logo takes up 15% of every slide is a pitch deck where information is sacrificed to the brand's ego. Investors don't remember your logo. They remember your value proposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What to do instead:<\/strong> keep the logo to its role as a signature. Bottom of the page, top-left corner, discreet. Give the visual space to the information, the imagery, the message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Picking three colors that \"go well together\" on Pinterest isn't enough. What matters isn't the palette itself, it's how it's used to create a clear hierarchy: what's primary, what's secondary, what's the attention-grabber?<\/p>\n\n\n\n We often see startups using their three brand colors at random, a heading in color A, a subheading in color B, a background in color C, with no reading logic. The eye doesn't know where to go. The message doesn't land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On top of that comes the issue of contrast. Light gray text on a white background is unreadable. A bright color on a colored background is harsh. Design has precise accessibility rules, and ignoring them degrades both the user experience and your perceived credibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What to do instead:<\/strong> define a primary color (the one that carries the strong message), a secondary color (structure, backgrounds, dividers), and an accent color (CTAs, key figures, things to remember). Stick to it. Always.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is a mistake of priority, not of design. A social media visual that leads with the company name rather than the promise. A landing page whose first visible element is a nice photo rather than the answer to \"why you and not someone else.\" A flyer where the address takes up more space than the offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Design can't rescue a bad information order. And conversely, a good information hierarchy makes even a simple design perfectly effective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The question to ask in front of every visual: if someone has only three seconds to look at it, what should they take away? That answer should be the biggest, most visible, highest element in the hierarchy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What to do instead:<\/strong> before touching a design tool, write down the three pieces of information in order of priority: what I want people to remember first, second, third. The design follows that logic, not the other way around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the most widespread mistake in French-speaking Switzerland, and the hardest to fix, because it's cultural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There's a deep-seated tendency here to want to please everyone. Neutral, safe branding that offends no one, that fits every context. A palette of blues and grays. A classic typeface. A restrained tone. Nothing that stands out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem is that branding trying to please everyone ends up sticking with no one. Visual neutrality is a form of invisibility. And in a competitive market, being invisible is exactly as costly as being poorly perceived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The brands that break through are the ones with the courage to take a clear visual stance. An unexpected color. A tone you don't see in the sector. A typeface that says something about who you are. That's not arrogance, it's clarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Owning a strong visual point of view means telling your target audience: we're made for you. And telling everyone else: maybe not. That filtering is a strength, not a weakness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What to do instead:<\/strong> ask not \"will everyone like this?\" but \"does this speak clearly to my audience?\" Branding that converts the right clients is worth infinitely more than branding that reassures everyone and convinces no one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n They all come from the same place: treating design as a box to tick rather than as an active communication tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Branding isn't there to look pretty. It's there to convey a positioning, build recognition, and convince the right people that you're the right answer to their problem. When it's poorly executed, it works against you silently, at every first contact, every presentation, every visual you publish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The good news: these mistakes are all fixable. They don't need a huge budget to be. They need method, consistency, and an outside eye that asks the right questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Does your branding really look like you? If you're in doubt, that's often the sign there's something to rework. Book a 15-minute call and we'll take a look together.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n The most common are using templates without adapting them, an oversized logo that crushes the content, poorly prioritized colors, wrong information priority, and a visual identity so neutral it doesn't stand out. These mistakes all have the same effect: branding that doesn't stick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n A logo is a recognition cue, not a message. People look at what you tell them, not at your name. An overbearing logo takes the place of the content and dilutes the message's impact. It should be discreet, consistent, and leave the visual space to your value proposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Beyond the choice of colors themselves, it's how they're used that counts. Define a primary color for the strong message, a secondary color for structure, and an accent color for key elements. Stick to it across every piece. Inconsistency is more damaging than an imperfect palette.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n It's often a cultural fear of not pleasing everyone. But neutral branding is invisible branding. The brands that break through are the ones that own a clear visual stance, an unexpected color, a distinctive tone, a typeface that says something about their identity. Standing out is a strength, not a risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, as long as you don't leave the templates as they are. Canva is a tool, not a strategy. The problem isn't the tool, it's the lack of a point of view: the same hierarchy as everyone else, the same fonts, the same layouts. Good branding on Canva is possible if you adapt the template deeply and apply a consistent visual logic.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On le voit r\u00e9guli\u00e8rement. Une startup lance son produit, investit dans son d\u00e9veloppement, dans son \u00e9quipe, dans sa lev\u00e9e de fonds, et b\u00e2cle son branding en trois jours sur Canva. Ou pire, elle le confie \u00e0 quelqu’un qui produit quelque chose de correct, propre, inoffensif, et totalement oubliable. Le branding n’est pas une formalit\u00e9 qu’on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1441,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"5 erreurs de branding que font les startups suisses (et comment les \u00e9viter)","_seopress_titles_desc":"Templates mal utilis\u00e9s, logo surdimensionn\u00e9, couleurs incoh\u00e9rentes, peur de se diff\u00e9rencier : les 5 erreurs de branding les plus fr\u00e9quentes chez les startups en Suisse romande, vues du terrain.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ressources"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/designdesk.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/designdesk.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/designdesk.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/designdesk.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/designdesk.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/designdesk.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1437,"href":"https:\/\/designdesk.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436\/revisions\/1437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/designdesk.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/designdesk.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/designdesk.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/designdesk.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Mistake 2: putting your logo big, everywhere<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Mistake 3: arranging colors badly and breaking the visual hierarchy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Mistake 4: not putting the right information front and center<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Mistake 5: being afraid to stand out<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What these five mistakes have in common<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Frequently asked questions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What are the most common branding mistakes for a startup?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Why shouldn't my logo be too big on my visuals?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
How do you choose the right colors for your branding?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Why are Swiss startups afraid to stand out visually?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Can you build good branding with Canva?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n