Daniel Gilmour

How to Choose the Right Color for Your Brand

Without exception, picking the right color for your brand is a crucial decision.

Your brand’s identity is greatly influenced by your color palette, so picking the right colors for your brand requires much more thought than just picking your favorite hues. 

Colors can affect our behavior and decision-making because they have diverse meanings that can express a wide range of emotions and ideas.

It may seem difficult to choose a color palette for your brand when there is such a wide range of colors available. But today we will give you some tips to help you in this process.

Right Color for Your Brand 1

Steps to selecting the ideal color for your brand

1. Recognize how many colors to use in the color scheme of your brand

Your brand colors provide you the direct route to your target audience’s hearts if you want to foster a strong emotional bond with them.

You might be curious about how many colors you need to define your brand when you first start thinking about them. It’s clear from looking at some of the most well-known brand color schemes in the world that many extremely successful palettes have three essential components:

  • The base color, this is the color that most represents the brand. As such, it ought to appeal to your target market while showcasing your most significant brand personality attribute.
  • After the base color, the accent color is the second most significant aspect of a brand. It should not only communicate an additional aspect of your brand, but it should also go well with your base color and captivate your target audience.
  • A neutral color is one that blends subtly into your color scheme without drawing too much attention to itself. Consider background colors that you would normally use, like gray, beige, or white in various shades.

Maybe you should read How to Get Customers To Buy Your Product

Right Color for Your Brand 2

2. Locate complementary colors using the color wheel

You will probably run into a lot of terms related to color theory and design when developing a brand color palette. The color wheel, a visual depiction of the relationships between primary colors and other shades, is one important idea to comprehend.

The origins of the color wheel can be found in the discovery made by English mathematician and physicist Isaac Newton in 1666 that clear white light was made up of seven visible colors, or the colors of the rainbow. Basic elements of the color wheel consist of:

  • Red, blue, and yellow are the three primary colors. You cannot combine these colors with other colors.
  • Secondary colors, such as purple, orange, and green. When primary colors are combined, these colors are produced.
  • Tertiary colors, like violet or aqua, are created by combining primary and secondary colors.

The two different color temperatures can also be represented by dividing the color wheel in half:

  • Purples, greens, and blues are examples of cool colors. These are connected to feelings of peace and tranquility as well as the colder seasons, such as winter and spring.
  • Warm colors include reds, oranges, and yellows. These are connected to feelings of vigor, action, and energy as well as warmer seasons like summer and fall.
Right Color for Your Brand 3

3. Recognize how color palette and brand personality are related

Now that you have a basic understanding of color theory, you can begin considering the colors that will work for your brand.

Consumers favor brands that “fit” well into their lives and these brands frequently become an integral part of an individual’s identity. One tool that marketers can use to communicate the main idea and mission of their brand is color.

You should start by carefully considering your brand identity and the tone you want to convey to your target audiences in order to genuinely reduce the variety of colors you use.

Understand the color associations to learn more about color psychology:

  • Red: dynamism, vigor, action, and passion.
  • Orange: feeling, freshness, hope, and zeal.
  • Yellow: joy, hope, positivism, and intelligence.
  • Green: peace, security, development, and well-being.
  • Blue: stability, loyalty, trust, and accountability.
  • Purple: symbolizes royalty, mysticism, spirituality, and creativity.
  • Pink: symbolizes kindness, love, femininity, and joy.
  • Black: symbolizes strength, protection, grace, and sophistication.
  • White: innocence, perfection, cleanliness, and purity.
  • Gray: neutrality, control, flexibility, and pragmatism.
  • Brown: comfort, steadiness, honesty, and dependability.
  • Gold: prosperity, victory, extravagance, and plenty.
  • Silver: mystery, sensitivity, fluidity, and femininity.
Blank sheet with red and yellow brush strokes.

4. Find the ideal brand colors for your sector

Did you know that certain industries are better suited for certain colors because of the messages and feelings that they represent? Selecting your brand’s colors requires first having a thorough understanding of your industry.

Brown

The industries that use the color brown the most frequently are those in fashion, automotive/transport, and agriculture. Cotton, UPS, and Louis Vuitton are three instances.

Pink

In the fields of technology, cosmetics, health, toys, and food, pink is a popular brand color. Barbie, Victoria’s Secret, and Taco Bell are just three companies that use pink.

Orange

Both the technology and healthcare industries use orange as a popular brand color. Amazon, GSK Consumer Healthcare, Firefox, and other brands are just three instances of businesses in these industries that have adopted orange as their logo.

Yellow

Food, home, and energy-related brands frequently choose yellow as their color. Three well-known brands that frequently use yellow in their color schemes are McDonald’s, IKEA, and Shell.

Choose the Right Color 5

Silver

Silver is a multipurpose brand color that is commonly used in industries like video games. Technology, watchmaking, electronics, and the news media too. Star Wars, Disney, and Bvlgari are three brands that probably spring to mind.

Green

In the energy, finance, food, household, and technology sectors, green is a popular brand color. BP, Starbucks, and Android are three well-known companies whose color scheme incorporates green.

More colors…

Purple

Purple is well-liked in the technology, healthcare, and finance industries. Three corporations that have incorporated purple into their brand colors are Starlight Children’s Foundation and Yahoo.

Blue

One of the most common colors used in brand color schemes is blue, especially in those associated with the energy, banking, aviation, technology, healthcare, and agricultural sectors. Oral B, NASA, and Twitter are three instances of this.

Black

Businesses in the automotive, fashion, and technology sectors frequently use black as part of their branding. Mercedes, Sony, and Nike are a few examples.

White

White can function as a dominant brand color despite being a neutral hue, especially for fashion and healthcare brands. GE Healthcare, Chanel, and Adidas are three instances.

Gray

In the petrochemical, interior design, automotive, and technology sectors, gray is a popular brand color. Nissan, Honda, and Wikipedia are just a few of the companies that use gray in their color schemes.

Red

In the food, technology, automotive, and agricultural sectors, red is a popular choice. Ferrari, Nintendo, and Kellogg’s are a few well-known companies that use the color red in their brand palettes and logo designs.

Gold

For brands in industries like fashion, fine dining, entertainment, and automobiles, gold is a popular choice. Lindt, Guess, and Warner Bros Pictures all include gold into their color schemes.

It’s important that you also know How to sell your new product or service 

Choose the Right Color 7

Try using Canva’s color wheel and dare to experiment with wonderful combinations that convey the essence of your brand.

Make sure to write down your color Hex code. A color hex code has the following form: #000000

A hexadecimal representation of a color is a hex code which is the amounts of red, green, and blue in a given shade of color combined to create a code.

Dare to experiment.

Ready to add color to your brand?

You’re prepared to finalize your color scheme and successfully implement it within your company now that you understand how to select the ideal colors for your brand.