How to Choose the Perfect Colours for Your Brand
The colours we choose for our brands, products or websites are significant.
We are constantly striving to deliver the best products possible as a company. It can be challenging to pick the perfect colours that will fit your brand and that your customers will be interested in.
To help, I’ve put together this guide to choosing the best colours for your brand. If you’re looking to start a new business, you’ll probably want to pick an established company that already has a brand and colour scheme.
It can be challenging to find inspiration if you’re looking to update your existing brand, as many of the classic colour schemes have changed with time. However, some classic schemes are still relevant today.
In today’s post, I will discuss how choosing the right colour scheme can help you establish a clear brand identity, enhance user experience, and increase conversion rates.
1 – Use Your Colour Palette for the Right Purpose
If you are doing a colour scheme for your website, you first need to choose a colour palette. You will select colours for your brand to create a specific look and feel for your website.
You need to get your colour palette right to get the best results. Make sure that your chosen colours suit the purpose of your website.
If you create a design for a children’s website, you might choose bright, primary colours like red, orange, and yellow. If you want to create a welcoming environment, you can use pastel colours like blue and white. You can use subdued colours like grey, beige, and black for a more professional image. Even the colour grey has a powerful impact on our brains. It’s the perfect colour for creating a calm environment.
If you are having trouble choosing the right colours for your brand, you can always look at pictures or websites of similar projects that you can compare with your identity.
You can also ask others for their opinion. They might have suggestions or ideas about colours that you haven’t considered. Another thing you can do is to use a colour wheel to help you choose colours that are in harmony with one another.
It would be best if you used the colour palette of a logo in harmony with the purpose it serves. If the logo is about being green and environmentally conscious, green is appropriate. Blue might work better if it’s about being a brand for a business that serves the community.
If it’s a logo design meant to communicate the company’s sense of humour, then a smiley face might work better than a colour palette that’s supposed to be serious. Make sure to keep the colours you choose for the logo consistent with everything else.
2 – Keep Your Colour Guidelines Simple and Consistent
When it comes to your website, your branding, your marketing materials, and the design of your business, stick to using consistent colours for your brand.
If you use a bright yellow for one of your marketing materials and then switch to a dark brown for another, your customers might think that your business doesn’t care about them or their needs.
It might be a good idea to stay consistent with your branding materials and your marketing materials. There are ways to use colours effectively. For example, it’s good to use yellow to make an impression. Yellow is an intense colour that is often used to attract attention.
However, too much yellow can make a webpage or advertisement look tacky. Therefore, you want to be careful when you use it. If you use a lot of it, it might look cheap or cheesy. So please don’t use it to draw attention.
If you have any doubts about using yellow on your website, marketing materials or branding, you should talk to someone who has experience with it. This will help you to make the right decision.
Your website needs to reflect your personality. That’s why you need to put much thought into your colour choices. You can use the colours you like, but make sure that the colours are consistent throughout your site.
If you are thinking about adding another colour, think about how the new colour will look with the existing colours.
You can also choose colours for your brand to help set the mood. For example, if you plan to have a relaxing experience, you might want to choose a soft blue or green background. If you are looking to gain more clients, a black or red background might help you to stand out from the rest. When choosing a good colour scheme, you can add your text and images with the colours.
3 – Create a Unique and Attractive Brand Identity
One of the first things that you should consider is your brand identity. Many people think that branding is only about what you do or look. But, it’s really about building a positive, trustworthy and desirable impression of your business.
It would help if you were sure that your brand identity was very consistent. People should be able to recognise your brand easily.
As you build your brand identity, you should pay attention to three main areas: logo design, website design and visual merchandising.
Your logo design is the face of your business. It’s the first thing that people see. Your logo design needs to be clear, memorable and straightforward. It should represent your business well. It would help if you also were sure that your logo is consistent across all marketing channels. It should appear the same on your website and in print advertising.
If you want to create a good brand identity, you must be consistent. For example, you can’t have two different websites. You can’t also have two different logos. It would be best if you didn’t use different colour palettes or logos for your website and your print advertisements. Your website should also look the same as your print ads. Consistency will help you to create a good brand identity.
Creating a unique and attractive brand identity is something every business should be thinking about. Most consumers have had experiences with brands. They’ve seen a company’s logo or even heard their company’s name in an ad.
They often don’t recognise the name on the packaging of the product they purchase. It’s essential to ensure that your brand’s identity is not only memorable but also unique.
4 – Use Colour as a Communication Tool
The main advantage of using colour in advertising is that you can get the attention of a large number of people. When you use colour, you can attract many people to your business.
The colours used can be bright or dull. But you must be careful of the colours for your brand because some colours can be offensive to customers.
Suppose you will use coloured uniforms, hats, or other accessories. In that case, you should first ask a fashion designer or a creative company to help you develop an excellent combination of colours that would suit you well.
You can either go with a bright or dark colour when choosing the colours for your brand. If you want to use a bright colour, you can go with red, blue, yellow, or orange. If you are thinking of using a dark colour, you should consider going with black, grey, brown, navy, or olive green.
According to research, the eye follows colour. The study states that people tend to look at things coloured red and orange the most. Other colours, such as brown and purple, are not nearly as noticeable.
When using colour as a marketing tool, consider what you’re trying to communicate. Are you selling a home, a car, a business, or a product? What colours should you use? Orange, for example, might not be the best choice for a home. What about grey? It’s a popular colour in the United States. Does your brand need grey? Think about how colours affect the mood and your brand.
5 – Consider the Environment before Selecting Your Colour Scheme
The colours you choose for your office and your business will significantly affect your business’s mood and feelings. This will show the people around you, including customers and potential clients.
If you have a successful business, you will likely have a lot of satisfied customers. They will remember your business for a long time because of your good service.
When you have happy customers, they are likely to spread the word about you. This will help you to grow your business.
When designing websites and marketing collateral, it is easy to fall into designing to our taste. Our eyes naturally start to seek patterns, and we settle on colours, fonts, etc., that seem pleasing to us.
But what happens if we design based on the environment? We don’t have a choice, do we? Whether it is a store, a website, or an advertisement, the environment we are working within is likely to have a colour scheme already in place. So why not adopt that scheme and take advantage of its familiarity and trustworthiness?
6 – Get Your Team on Board
You can’t go wrong when you start branding your business. Your business will only succeed if you are true to yourself and your customers. The company name and logo you come up with should represent your brand. Your brand identity should reflect the values that your business stands for.
Once you have your brand identity down, your next step is to get your team on board with it. Don’t just use the design of your logo and company name for your brand. Create a unique brand identity that represents your business.
7 – Decide How Much to Spend
Many people neglect brands, and they should be cautious about it because the wrong decision could make or break a business. Brands are expensive to develop, maintain, and promote.
The problem is that most businesses are not ready to commit the necessary resources until they have built a significant customer base.
So, in the beginning, they are just getting started and trying to figure out where they are going. And there are many things to consider before you make any branding decisions:
- What type of brand are you developing?
- Is your brand a physical brand or an online brand?
- Do you need to develop a brand for your website, Facebook page, and Twitter account?
- Do you need a logo, a tagline, a slogan, a mobile app, and a social media presence?
There are so many different ways you can develop a brand, and each one requires different types of resources.
8 – Find the Right Design Partner
Branding designers play an essential role in creating the image of your company. They are responsible for your logo, colour palette, website design, and advertising.
You can find a good branding designer in many ways, including personal recommendations, online resources, or referrals from other companies or people.
When searching for a good branding design partner, you should consider the following questions.
- How long has the branding design partner been in business? Do they have experience in branding and designing websites?
- Does the branding design partner use modern graphic design techniques?
- What are the client’s budget constraints? Is the branding design partner willing to work within a limited budget?
- Does the branding design partner understand your business model?
- What experience does the branding design partner have with your industry?
- Are they familiar with your brand’s target audience?
- Have they worked with companies similar to yours? If so, how did they perform?
- Are they willing to communicate with your team?
- How quickly can they complete a project?
- How do they charge for their services?
- Can they do high-end projects?
- Do they provide references?
- Do they have a portfolio that you can review?
- Do they charge hourly rates or fixed prices?
- Build Your Colour Library
When I started my graphic design business, I had a small arsenal of colours. I used them frequently but wasn’t particularly familiar with using them well.
When it came time to rebrand, I wanted to have a new set of colours to choose from. I researched, found the Pantone colour guides, and began to collect a library of colours.
Over time, I added additional colours based on my needs and what I thought might work best for clients. Today, I have a pretty sizeable colour collection that I use often.
As a designer, I use the colours as inspiration, and I’ll also use colours that work well with other colours I have in my collection.
9 – Consider colour as a Resource
It’s not hard to find examples of people who have failed to realise the power of colour to influence consumer buying decisions.
Most marketing campaigns and product launches feature too drab colours to convey their message effectively. However, colour is a potent communication tool and should be used in any marketing campaign, product launch, or branding initiative. It is often a good idea to consider colour as a resource rather than an afterthought.
When it comes to branding, colour can be a great resource. Whether you’re trying to convey an emotion or convey a message, colour is an essential part of communicating any information, and it’s a crucial element of building brand identity. But there is a catch. Not all colour works the same.
Conclusion
Choosing colours for your brand is much like choosing a colour palette for your website. Colours that work well together look pleasing to the eye, while those that don’t are jarring.
If you are not careful, you could choose the wrong colours for your brand. So, make sure that you choose colours that complement each other and complement your brand’s personality.
It’s one of the most overlooked aspects of creating an effective brand, but choosing the right colour palette is essential.
