Have you settled on a logo for your startup yet? That decision seems like a small one — a quick thing to simply check off the to-do list! — but it’s actually a pretty big undertaking. Startup logos, while often tiny, can make a huge impact on the success or failure of your company. That one tiny little image will be used everywhere — from iPhone tiles to your letterhead to packaging for physical products to swag. With that much real estate, a bad logo can do some serious damage.

But, how do you know what a bad startup logo looks like? Surely logo design is at least a little bit subjective! Perhaps, like the famous Supreme Court justice quote about pornography, you know it when you see it. However, even within the spectrum of subjectivity, t...