So you’re deciding on a colour for your brand, what colour to choose? EASY, you think, green because you like it. Well, I’d hate to break it to you, but there is a lot to think about when choosing the colour and it can’t just be because you like it (unless it works of course!).
This is where we as brand specialists come in to help you. Colour is important and believe it or not, it can actually make or break your brand. We’ve studied the colour wheel, we know the correct colour pairings, we know what certain colours mean to different cultures and how they can hold symbolic connotations. Though more importantly, we come in as an advisor who isn’t emotionally invested in your brand (yet), and give you our honest and experienced feedback.
As much as you may think, but I’m just a mechanic, how can that make a difference? Well let me ask you this question; how do you feel about a hospital with black walls? Or an organic food store with a bright red logo? It may not phase some people, but we can guarantee it will phase a lot of other people. So much so, that they may completely eliminate your business/brand in their buying selection process and ‘ain’t nobody got time fo’ dat?.
Colour evokes emotion in everyone
It’s important to take this part of your branding seriously. It’s one of the reasons why we design our first logo concepts in black and white so that our clients can choose based purely off the design without the colour interfering. Let’s test this out for a second, what colours do you think about when you think about summer? Let me guess; yellow, orange, red? That’s because these are colours significant to warmth, so it’s likely that people associate the colours with that feeling. Likewise with winter but instead, a cool colour palette.
To give you an example, let’s talk blue. Blue is often associated with confidence, honesty, trust and loyalty. It’s also relative to cleanliness and calmness, amongst other things too. Now think about things in life that are blue and how they’re relative to the above statement. We know that Police wear blue uniforms, just like a lot of airline pilots, both of these signify trust.
Take a look at the below image, think about your brand or a brand you know and see where it fits?
Different cultures have different colour meanings
As we know, not all cultures are the same. In Western culture, black is the colour of mourning where in contrast, white is the colour of mourning in Chinese culture. It works exactly the same way with purity and again, indicates the opposite; Western Culture is white and Chinese culture is black. So when you are selling to specific markets you need to take this into consideration, for a brief rundown have a look at ‘Colour Symbolism and Culture‘ by The Incredible Art Department.
So what do you do?
When it comes to it, ask us, because we’ve done our study and we know what to do. Communication is the most important element of a business, if you can’t communicate your messages to your audience effectively, then how do you get new customers? Of course, colour is also subjective, so asking friends and family members for their opinion is what most people do, but I can guarantee you we know what we are talking about and we want to help you succeed. For other ways of building a strong brand see ‘5 tips to better advertising your business‘ and ‘3 huge factors that impact your brand reputation‘.
To see some great examples of logo colour choices check out “21 outstanding uses of colour in branding’ from Creative Bloq.
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