Five design clichés we wish would die.

Some design ideas refuse to disappear, but these five cause more harm than good.

Why design clichés weaken your brand.

Some design ideas have had a good run. Others should have been gently retired years ago, perhaps with a small leaving card and a polite speech from accounts.

The problem with design clichés is not that they look familiar. Familiarity can be useful. Nielsen Norman Group makes a strong case for consistency and standards because users bring expectations with them, and good design should respect those expectations.^[1] The problem starts when familiar ideas get used without thought.

Design clichés are familiar ideas used without enough thought. They can weaken brand identity, reduce clarity and make it harder for users to act.

A cliché often feels safe because you have seen it before. But safe design is not the same as effective design. If a design choice does not support the brand, help the user, or improve the message, it is decoration pretending to be strategy.

At Toast, we have seen enough oversized logos, vague stock photos and heroic homepage sliders to last several lifetimes. So, with kindness in our hearts and a bin bag in our hands, here are five design clichés we would happily retire.

• Make the logo bigger.
• Stock photos of people pointing at glass.
• The homepage slider that tries to say everything.
• Minimalism with no meaning.
• Designing for the boardroom, not the user.
• What should replace these clichés.
• References.

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1. Make the logo bigger.

This may be the oldest cliché in agency life. The layout is balanced, the hierarchy works, the call to action is clear, and then someone says, “Can we make the logo bigger?”

Sometimes the answer is yes. A logo can be too small, especially in practical contexts such as signage, packaging or event graphics. But most of the time, this request comes from a misplaced fear that people will not remember the brand unless the logo shouts at them.

Good branding does not rely solely on size. It relies on consistency, recognition and meaning. The colour palette, typography, tone of voice, photography, spacing, layout and message all do brand work. If those elements are weak, making the logo larger will not fix the problem.

A professionally designed set of branding guidelines like the one below for On Call Africa remove any doubt or confusion on how to apply your barnd.

In fact, it can make the design worse. A larger logo often steals space from the message the user actually needs. It can also make a brand feel less confident. Strong brands rarely need to shout. They know who they are, and they show it through every part of the experience.

This is where brand discipline matters. A design should make the brand clear, but it should also guide the user. GOV.UK’s design principles start with user needs, not internal assumptions.^[2] That is a useful reminder for any brand. The user is not looking for a logo. They are looking for a reason to care.

2. Stock photos of people pointing at glass.

You know the image. A group of impossibly cheerful people gather around a laptop. One person points at a transparent screen, a chart, or some floating business nonsense. Everyone nods as if they have just solved the growth problem.

These images still appear on websites, brochures and LinkedIn posts because they feel quick and harmless. They are rarely harmless. They make a business look generic. They also waste one of the strongest brand assets available, real visual evidence.

Photography should help people understand who you are, what you do and why it matters. It should add proof. A real team photo, a product in use, a workshop session, a finished project, a client environment, or a carefully art-directed image will almost always say more than a stock photo of vague collaboration.

There is also a trust issue. If every competitor uses the same image style, the user has no reason to remember you. Distinctive brand assets help recognition. Generic images do the opposite. They smooth away the details that make a business credible.

This does not mean all stock imagery is bad. It means lazy stock imagery is bad. If an image could sit on the websites of a law firm, software company, recruiter and accountancy practice without anyone noticing, it is probably not doing enough.

3. The homepage slider that tries to say everything.

The homepage slider often starts with good intentions. There are five important messages, and nobody wants to choose any of them. So the design gives each message a slide and hopes the user will wait around.

They usually will not.

Nielsen Norman Group notes that carousels can give several pieces of content the same valuable space, but people often scroll past them, and a static hero or integrated content may work better.^[3] Baymard Institute also found that 46% of e-commerce homepage carousels have UX performance issues.^[4]

The real issue is not the slider itself. It is the lack of decision behind it. A slider can become a place where strategy goes to hide. Instead of deciding what matters most, the page gives everything equal weight. That makes the first screen busy, diluted and easy to ignore.

A better homepage makes a clear promise. It gives the user a strong starting point. It helps them choose where to go next. If there are five important messages, they can be structured across the page, linked to user intent and placed where they make sense.

Design is often about deciding what not to show first. That can feel uncomfortable, but it is usually where the value is.

4. Minimalism with no meaning.

White space is not a strategy. Neither is a tiny line of grey text in the middle of a page.

Minimal design can be brilliant. It can make content easier to read, improve focus and give a brand a calm, confident feel. Nielsen Norman Group’s guidance on aesthetic and minimalist design explains that every extra unit of information competes with relevant information, potentially reducing visibility.^[5]

But minimalism only works when the remaining content is strong. If you remove explanation, proof, context and useful signposting, you do not create a better experience. You create a guessing game.

This is especially common in luxury, technology and professional services brands. The design becomes so stripped back that the user is left with a vague headline, a moody image and no clear reason to act.

Good minimal design still answers the user’s questions. It still explains the offer. It still supports conversion. It still works for accessibility. The World Wide Web Consortium sets clear contrast requirements because readability depends on more than taste.^[6] Pale grey text may look elegant in a presentation, but that does not mean it works on a phone screen in poor light.

Minimalism should remove noise. It should not remove meaning.

5. Designing for the boardroom, not the user.

This cliché causes the most damage because it can hide behind the process. A design gets shaped by internal preferences, senior opinions and the loudest voice in the meeting. The final work may please the room, but misses the audience.

Every agency has seen this happen. A colour is changed because someone does not like green. A useful headline is replaced with a safer one. A clear call to action is softened until it has no action left. A page is filled with internal language because the business wants to explain itself before it helps the user.

This is where design loses its job. It stops solving problems and starts managing opinions.

Good design still needs client input. The client knows the business, the market and the offer. But the design decision should return to the user, the objective, and the evidence. GOV.UK’s principle to start with user needs is blunt for a reason. If you do not know what the user needs, you will not build the right thing.^[2]

This also applies to visual taste. A client does not need to personally love every design choice. They need to understand why the choice works. The best design is not always the design you would hang on your wall. It is the design that does the job.

What should replace these clichés.

Retiring design clichés does not mean chasing novelty. New for the sake of new becomes its own cliché very quickly.

The better answer is clear thinking. Start with the audience. Understand what they need to know, feel and do. Build the design around that. Use the brand properly. Create hierarchy. Make content readable. Test assumptions. Remove anything that does not help.

Strong design often looks simple once it is finished. That does not mean it was simple to create. It means the hard thinking has already happened.

So, should every large logo, stock image, slider and minimalist layout disappear forever? No. Design is rarely that neat. But these choices should have to earn their place. If they support the user and strengthen the brand, keep them. If they are there because everyone else does it, it is time to move on.

Design clichés survive because they feel familiar. Good design lasts because it works.

References.

1. Nielsen Norman Group. Maintain Consistency and Adhere to Standards. Accessed 2 June 2026.
2. Government Digital Service. Government Design Principles. Accessed 2 June 2026.
3. Nielsen Norman Group. Carousel Usability: Designing an Effective UI for Websites with Content Overload. Accessed 2 June 2026.
4. Baymard Institute. 10 UX Requirements for Homepage Carousels. Accessed 2 June 2026.
5. Nielsen Norman Group. Aesthetic and Minimalist Design. Accessed 2 June 2026.
6. World Wide Web Consortium. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2. Accessed 2 June 2026.