When it comes to branding, one of the first things you need to think about is the colors you choose. Not only do your colors make you immediately identifiable, but they also start to build a relationship with your customers by eliciting an emotional response. How people feel about your business is important, and while your brand colors might seem like a small detail, they can play a part in this. So, how should you go about choosing the best colors for your brand?
Importance of Color to Your Brand
Branding is one of the essential parts of your marketing, and color plays a huge role in this. When you think of many of the biggest brands in the world, they all tend to be closely associated with a color.
Whether it’s Coca-Cola red, or Chase blue on white, colors can make a brand immediately identifiable and help consumers to distinguish between different companies.
Eliciting Emotion
Colors aren’t just about looking pretty; they elicit emotion. When you choose a color for your brand, it can dictate some of the first feelings people have about your business. People don’t buy products from certain companies or follow brands just because of logical reasons. There are also emotional responses that go into these decisions.
Here are some things a design and branding agency might be able to help you portray through color:
- Red – Passion, excitement, and anger
- Green – Stability, growth, and nature
- Blue (Dark) – Professionalism, formality, and security
- White – Clean, simple, and healthy
- Black – Powerful, luxurious, and sophisticated
- Yellow – Happiness, youth, and optimism
The colors you choose for your brand will elicit certain emotions, so think about what you want to portray.
Consistency
A massive part of branding is consistency. You want to create a consistent image for your business, and that means doing the same things over and over.
One of the most identifiable parts of your brand is your logo, so the colors you use are going to play a big role in portraying a consistent image. Whether it’s on your storefront, your website, your email marketing, direct communications, or anything else, you need something that makes you immediately identifiable, and this is exactly what the right colors in a good logo can do.
Choosing Your Brand Colors
Most brands break their colors down into three categories: base, accent, and neutral. Your base is the dominant color in your brand, the accent adds an extra splash of color, and the neutral color is generally the background.
The important thing to remember is that there are no firm rules when you’re choosing your colors. What you come up with should reflect your brand’s values and please your target market, and this should be a creative process.
However, it’s certainly a decision you want to get right, so you need to put plenty of thought into the process. If colors aren’t your thing, then work with a professional to make sure you come out with something that reflects the level of professionalism of your business.