I am a color-lover. I rarely wear white and my house is as colorful as a rainbow. That is my personal preference for how I live, but did you know the choice of color for branding and marketing needs to go beyond personal preference? You choice for brand colors matter and will impact your organization.
Choosing Brand Colors
Brand colors play a crucial role in establishing a strong and recognizable brand identity. When choosing your brand colors, here are some things to take into consideration:
Visual Recognition
Brand colors are an essential component of visual recognition. When customers see your brand’s colors consistently applied across various touch points, such as logos, packaging, advertisements, and websites, they create a strong association between those colors and your brand. This visual consistency helps customers quickly identify and recall your brand in a crowded marketplace, fostering brand recognition and recall.
Emotional Connection
Colors have the power to evoke emotions and influence human behavior. Different colors elicit varying emotional responses. 85% of consumers cite color as the primary reason they buy a particular product.
By carefully selecting brand colors that align with your brand’s personality and values, you can create a specific emotional connection with your target audience. For example, vibrant and energetic colors like red and orange may be suitable for an adventurous outdoor brand, while calm and soothing colors like blue and green may be more appropriate for a wellness or healthcare brand.
Here is a guide for picking colors, based on the emotions they create:
- ? Yellow – Optimism, Warmth
- ? Orange – Friend, Confident
- ❤️ Red – Bold, Excitement
- ? Purple – Creative, Wise
- ? Blue – Trust, Strength
- ? Green – Peaceful, Health
- ? Gray – Balance, Calm
- ? Black – Classic, Bold
Differentiation
In a competitive market, it is crucial to differentiate your brand from competitors. Unique and distinctive brand colors can help you stand out from the crowd. By choosing colors that are different from your competitors’ or using colors in a unique combination, you create a visual identity that sets your brand apart. This differentiation can increase brand memorability and attract customers who resonate with your brand’s distinctiveness.
Brand colors play a pivotal role in visual recognition, emotional connection, differentiation, brand consistency, and communication. By carefully choosing and consistently implementing your colors, you can strengthen your brand’s identity, create a lasting impression, and foster meaningful connections with your target audience.
Using Colors
Picking colors is important, but so is how you USE the colors. You’ll need to think about how colors interact with one another. You don’t want to pick 10 colors for main colors in your branding. You’ll want 3-5 colors, some as a primary and some as secondary to help support. You don’t have to use all these colors all the time. Use them strategically.
You also want to consider your use of white space. White space allows your eyes to rest. It can also show professionalism.
When designing to attract customers it should be easy to read. Don’t make the viewer work for it, because they won’t!
Flow should also be considered. Where does your eye go first? Then where does it go? Is it hard to follow the information being presented? This is where white space and strategically using color can help highlight important information and keep the eye moving.
Next time you design something, here are a few simple questions to ask:
- ? Is everything legible?
- ? Did I strategically use color and white space?
- ? Does the information flow?
- ? How is the contrast with your colors?
I love helping clients find colors that truly work for them and their business goals. If you would like to chat about colors, let’s connect!