Choosing the right colour for your brand is among the key factors that businesses need to consider. Marketing enthusiasts can attest that colour is a powerful element of branding. Coming up with the right colours for your business is a great way to evoke potential clients’ emotions and have them see your business in a certain way. There are many different factors that play a part in graphic design and establishing a brand that the public will notice, and colour is one of them.
The right colours should be aesthetically pleasing, and at the same time, portray what your business is all about. With such a variety of colours to choose from, there is a wide palette for your brand to look at that you can use on your website, socials, marketing material, and products. Therefore, designers and business owners must highlight what the company is all about and what it aims to achieve when choosing the perfect brand colours.
Use colours that reflect the company they’re for
The first factor that needs to be considered is what the company is and all about. It is important to fully understand the business and its brand, what industry it’s in, and what it wants to highlight. Understand the kind of services the company offers, the kind of clients it targets, and the message that the brand should pass to consumers. It would be best to consider what will make your brand stand out from other businesses in the same industry.
The colour you settle for should also emphasise key attributes of the business and what it aims to accomplish. The colours you select will be vital in aiding your brand to communicate what the business is all about and helping make it memorable, sleek, and eye-catching. It can be useful for businesses and their designers to also understand what is currently trending in graphic design too when brainstorming colour ideas. Some of the top graphic design trends for 2021 that are emerging right now include experimenting with disharmonious colours and essentially using colours that contrast rather than seamlessly blend together.
Do some research on main competitors in the industry
The aim of the logo and its colour is to make the entire company, including its website and brand, stand out from the rest in the industry. Therefore, a good designer should have a clear and in-depth understanding of the main competitors’ branding. The last thing a company would want to do is look too similar to a major competitor. Conducting a competitor analysis can help brands see what’s out in the industry already so that they can get inspiration for something new.
The goal is to create a colour scheme that will reflect the company’s attributes, and at the same time, make it exceptional from others. The logo and brand colours should be unique and at the same time elevate brand recognition among the target consumers.
Think about the emotions that different colours evoke
Before settling on a specific colour, designers ought to be aware of the psychology of colour. Colours are very important because they tend to trigger people’s feelings, emotions and memories. Different colours have varying meanings and differ in the kind of emotions they elicit. Therefore, it is important to choose a colour that matches the energy of the business.
For instance, if the company is all about environmental conservation, green makes a good colour choice since it represents nature. While the use of black in brand logos represents glamour and sophistication. On the other hand, red can often symbolise energy and excitement, but could also stand for danger and urgency depending on the company. It is, therefore, necessary to consider the pros and cons associated with the respective colours too.
For some websites, such as online sports betting sites, blue and white are often popular colours to use. The colour blue creates a sense of trust, reliability, and calmness while white creates balance and neutrality. Big companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Skype utilise this colour scheme in their brands and marketing. Clearly selecting the right colour combinations are key to creating a strong and relatable brand.
Consider the period of use for the selected colours
Are the colours to be used for a temporary event? Or are they to establish a long lasting brand? Almost always, brand colour schemes are used for a range of digital and print marketing for a long period of time. Therefore it’s important to think long and hard about whether these are the right colours to use for your business. If you’re not quite sure on the decision, it can be harder to change the colours and branding in the future when the business is already well-established.
Changing your mind later on is going to become an issue when your website, socials, products, business cards, and more all use that colour scheme. It can be a pricey and time consuming fix when rebranding. Rebranding can also be a risky move later on if customers are too familiar with what is already in place.
Source: DesignerDaily
