Branding Colours:How to Choose Colours for Your Brand?

Last Updated on June 3, 2021 by DesignerPeople

Planning for rebranding or starting up a new business, one thing which is essential but also the most challenging job is to identify correct colours for your brand. Colours are such a strong element that once established incorrect nature, and people start recognizing brands based on colour. Many famous companies have developed their brands by productively using colours.

Have you ever observed why the feminine products are in purple, blue and pink shades? Or why maximum Banking brands are blue? Restaurants prefer colour red and retail products are vibrant. These are not just to make products look fancy or random colours adoption of each shade has constructive meaning and importance.

According to research, 85% of consumers trust colour as being the most motivating factor when making a purchase decision. 92% acknowledge visual appearance.

It is a combination of colour psychology with business which relates to persuasion is the most exciting aspect of branding and marketing colours. Colour psychology is having deeper than just cold and warm tones. Hence one can go so far as to associate some specific personality traits with certain hues.

WHY THE BRANDING COLOURS MATTER?

The colour associations are highly dependent on personal experience, culture and context, among many other things. When a brand is introduced into the market, everyone wants to be crystal clear towards their customers or clients. Companies spend ample of money, time, human resources and their efforts into building of perfect website design, brand voice and logo. But one crucial aspect which most companies fail to do is identifying the importance of colours in the branding process and its importance.

As per recent studies, the initial judgments about product or brand is made based on its brand colour alone.

Different shades have effects on people, and in fact, there is a complete science background around a brand which dedicates in understanding the impact and essentiality.

As per the principles of colour psychology, shades connected to the emotional value of the audience. The only logo is not enough to establish the entire brand story; hence, colour plays a significant role in expressing a short way in discovering brand as the whole story.

Colour impacts on how people feel, behave and perceive things in day to day life.

Example: let’s take the red, which is widely perceived as bold colour and is often used to signify passion or danger. But from a branding perspective, it is used to excite the audience. For launching sports energy drinks red is again an ideal shade as it ignites energy. If starting a relaxation or soothing brands, maybe a spa or any natural products, then red is less suitable because pastels play the best role here.

Most humans decisions are taken based on emotional value, and hence, it’s not necessary all countries will have some psychological point of view. Cultural and social elements also play a crucial role in selecting the colours and their associations with that specific country audience.

Example: Americans associates green colour with money as its part of their everyday life but not necessary that other countries also associate the same because of the colour of currencies differ country-wise. Even a cold-hearted business person cannot ignore the value and meanings of shades.

Colours also help to build brand identity and just a visual of colour can convey experiences, emotions, personality and feelings of the brand.

HOW TO CHOOSE COLOURS FOR YOUR BRAND?

1.DISCOVER YOUR FOCUS 

Understand what your brand is catering and its value. Understand the brand target audience so that this will help you to identify the personality in which brand will mould.

Having clarity about brand goals, mission, vision will help in decision making of brand colours and their purpose. Identify brands personality then check which colours suit its characteristics of product and services so that accordingly shade can be selected.

Analyze and get done research done on competitors shades and their values.

Examples: Coca-Cola’s red represents being vibrant, energetic and memorable.

2.ANALYZE PSYCHOLOGICALLY  

Understanding psychology can help you to reflect the feelings which you want your brand to evoke from customers end. Tech organizations and banking institutes majorly seen with blue colour in their logos that is because it represents freedom, trust, progress and intelligence.

Example: SBI, IBM, Facebook

Blues and greens are considered to very relaxing, trustworthy, nature-oriented colours while orange, red, yellow are bold, excited and energetic colours.

3.GO EXPERIMENTING 

When you are planning a brand colour, there is nothing called as “best” initially. There are various colours, and one should experience with shades in every campaign. Experiment with pure colour, an accent colour, or different background colours along with their combinational twists until you find that one perfect colour.

Design various types of Call-to-action till you finalize the final one remember the art of colour is a combination of art and science.

Example: Google is a brand which has always been known for their creative and intelligent brand logo’s.

4.RESEARCH MARKET COMPETITION 

It is essential to understand the market competitors national as well as international brands. Study their colour concepts and their stories associating with that shade. Researching brand logos, websites, colour schemes of other brands will help you to decide if to stand distinct or plan to compete.

Have clarity on USP of your brand and its values so that selected such personality colours can enrich them.

Example: The red colour in the Canon logo represents love, passion, energy and determination. The use of yellow colour in the Nikon logo depicts joy, anger, depth, while the black colour represents the unparalleled quality, trust and confidence. Now imagine if these colours swapped with brands. Canon’s sharp topography will lose its appeal and Nikon will become too offsetting with the use of black on a bold red background.

Also Read: Logo Design for Inspiration Industry wise

5.CREATE A MOOD BOARD

Mood board is an inspiration platform which will capture the soul and essence of the brand. Collection of images from P-interest will convey the look and feel of colour on your brand and website. It is a form of visual foundation that captures the vision of your brand. A lot of money and time is saved by constructing a mood board before actually executing the original designs.

Balance out colours and density by separating bold colours with neutrals and busier images with simple ones.

Placing various colours together will provide an idea about the emotions and mood that your brand will evoke. To generate a mood board colours are used by extracting from images and other brand’s colour schemes, which can be done by using a Canva Color Palette tool and removing the hex code of a chosen colour. A lot of designers prefer to us 60-30-10 rule, which says to use three colours from the palette in the ratio of 60%,30% and 10%.

THE EFFECT OF BRAND COLOURS ON AUDIENCE 

No fast rule when it comes about how the colours will influence an audience because sometimes its very subjective as per industry and its value. People love to bring their perspectives based on experience and records.

But the majority of people have similar reactions towards specific colours and hence using these benchmarks, one can understand how to use the colour to your advantage in branding.

Here are some interesting facts about how colours are perceived in branding:

1.RED

Red in branding is associated with Love, Danger, Passion, Excitement, Anger. It simplifies the action of command, urgency and signifies importance.

Example: Netflix, RedBull, Kelloggs, CNN, Coca-Cola, Levi’s.

2.ORANGE

Brand use Orange colour to depict Optimism, Happiness and Approachable factors. It appears to be warm and friendly hence is a common choice for brands targeting children. Orange is a colour which stands for playfulness, vitality and also evokes energy.

Examples: Harley-Davidson, Fanta, Nick

3.YELLOW

Yellow signifies happiness, youth, cheerful sometimes also associated with craziness. It is quite similar to orange and hence speaks about affordability and approachability.

Example: Shell, Mac D, Nikon.

4.GREEN

Green colour evokes stability, growth and prosperity. It resembles a closer connection with nature and is known for a calming and soothing effect on consumers.

Examples: Land Rover, bp, Starbucks,

 

5.BLUE

A lot of brands associate with blue colour as it is known for trust, faith, openness and also with stability. Serenity, confidence and calmness are also the USP of blue colour.

Example: Intel, Ford, Skype

6.PURPLE

It is known for its royalty, luxury and creativity. It is also associated with feminine products or services.

Example: Yahoo, Cadbury, Byju’s

7.PINK

Stands for youth, femininity, innocence and also known for being modern to the productive zone.

Example: Cosmopolitan, Claire’s

8.BLACK 

Black evokes a powerful, sophisticated, edgy, luxurious and modern feeling.

Example: Nike, Apple, Puma

9.BROWN

Brown creates a rugged, old-fashioned, earthy look or mood.

Example: M&M, LUX

10.WHITE

White evokes cleanliness, virtue, or simplicity, health. It can range from affordable to high-end.

Example: Uber, Calvin Klein, Wikipedia

COLOUR TRENDS IN MEN AND WOMEN 

The study done on colour perception and preferences show that men prefer darker shades compared to women who like softer and subtle colours. Men select shades as their favourites with black as added while females are more receptive towards tints of tones with white added.

POWER OF SHAPES AND COLOURS 

Brands communicate meanings with their colour and shape. As the famous quote says “An image is worth a thousand words.”

There are natural or universal associations with shapes and colours which are common to all of us.

Example: A horizontal line is stable, and a diagonal line is dynamic, and Red is hot and full of fire, blue is fresh and watery or intangible like the sky.

Shapes and colours work together in harmony; hence, the form is essential to understand the value of colour in branding. Even geometrical shapes perceived as soft or hard based on shades used.

Few colours imbibed in our mind due to constant use in day to day life such a car stop in red light and moves in green light. Colour is the visual element people recognize, and associate meaning with it followed by shape.

Example: Arch of McDonald’s is easily detected.

 

CONCLUSION

The colours which you choose to include in your brand colour palette reflect a lot about who you are as a brand, and they also determine how your audience will perceive and interact with your brand. Make sure you finalize the colours that both feel true to who you are as a brand and are the most likely to get you to your desired results. There are also creative branding agency who are specialized in constructing the correct colours and implementing it with corrective value-oriented results.

Author: Priyanka Thakkar

Passionate, adventurous and my never-ending learning approach lead me towards the world of content writing after working years in core marketing profile. My experience of working in world-famous MNC motivated me to understand the niche requirement of strategic words to communicate correctly about brand message towards people. My zeal in an informal way of writing articles allows anyone to enrich their knowledge in the world of branding, packaging and digital marketing. Being an MBA in Marketing and HR, my excellence lies in framing marketing strategies as well as relationship building. Do connect me personally my LinkedIn & I love to share my expertise with you.