How to choose the best colors for your brand

The colors used in your business are an important part of your brand. They are the building blocks of your business’s reputation and character. These colors will also be replicated on your website and another online branding such as social media.

Building a brand is important; people relate to a brand the same way they do to a person’s character. Ensuring that the brand of your business compliments your working environment will give potential new clients an idea of quality and what to expect from the services you provide.

How to choose the best colors for your brand

Designers use a 60-30-10 rule. The best approach is to use no more than three colors within your branding color scheme. The primary color should be used to cover 60% of your practice brand; the secondary color should cover only 30%. The remaining 10% of the color should be used for accents and highlights. Having too many hues of color can make the brand look unprofessional.

When choosing your brand’s colors you may want to look at how visitors experience your brand. A brand isn’t just your logo, it also represents the services you specialize in and the way you treat your customers. Once you have chosen your brand it should stay consistent throughout all areas of communication with your customers. This will include your digital marketing strategy, the website, social media, events, and online reputation.

Understand the meaning of colors for your brand

You might be surprised by what the color of your business says about you. Having an understanding of colors can affect the way patients feel about you.

Colors can affect our moods and can therefore be used to offer a comforting and uplifting environment for your clients; using well-considered color schemes shows professionalism.

McDonald’s is one example of how important the colors are for a brand. McDonald’s (MCD) restaurants across Europe removed the red background behind the golden arches logo and replacing it with green. The green color is supposed to make customers associate the company with a commitment to the environment.

It’s important that your website is an extension of your brand

For example, if you have a minimalistic, modern type business then this should be replicated in the colors and design of your website. If your business is in the country and has a cozy atmosphere, your website design should reflect this as well.

When clients visit your website, app, or social media networks, they should instinctively know that the colors seen on your online profiles form a part of your brand.

Why do clients need brand consistency?

Keeping the same look and feel for your brand and your website will generate trust and a secure feeling amongst your regular clients. This will make them feel more comfortable and trustfully using the web functions offered on the site. It also shows professionalism and will attract new patients who have been referred by existing loyal clients.

From color psychology to brand management

For those fascinated by color and for those who want to make strategic use of the wide chromatic range, we are going to summarize the association that each shade has with the brand identity. Knowing the meanings of the color card, you can start from a symbolic communication to leave an intense message in the minds of the people you want to reach. Before we create the best colors for your brand, we need to know the significance of each color and when it is best suited to be used.

Blue

It is the color most used by companies. It evokes depth, seriousness, trust, and solemnity. It has been used by brands ranging from Pepsi, Hewlett Packard, Volkswagen, to social networks such as Skype, Twitter, and Facebook. As it represents elements of air and water, it is ideal for cleaning products, airlines, and airports; in fact, NASA also uses this color in its emblem.

• Positive aspects: Professionalism, loyalty, trust, integrity, responsibility, orderly, authority, peace, and calm.
• Negative aspects: Depression, sadness, overly conservative, predictable, cold, and weak.

Green

Calm and peaceful color, it represents aspects such as hope, health, and peace. It has been used by big brands like Starbucks, Lacoste, Spotify, and Android.

• Positive aspects: Growth, vitality, renewal, confidence, balanced, generous, kind and calm.
• Negative aspects: Possessive, materialistic, indifferent, envious, selfish, greedy, inexperienced and inconsiderate.

Red

Passionate, intense, exciting, and even in a certain sense aggressive and dangerous, it reflects values ​​such as vitality and strength. Some famous brands that have used this color are Coca Cola, Ferrari YouTube, Red Bull, and Levi’s.

• Positive aspects: Action, energy, speed, attraction, exhilarating, powerful, passionate, courage, strength, and determination.
• Negative aspects: Aggressive, dominant, angry, fearful, bigoted, rebellious, stubborn, violent, resentful, and brutal.

Yellow

It is a bright and warm color that reflects qualities such as optimism and clarity. National Geographic, Nikon, SubWay, Shell and McDonald’s are just a few entities that chose to include it in their logo as the main color.

• Positive aspects: Optimism, enthusiasm, confidence, self-esteem, extroversion, originality, friendly, creativity, wisdom, and logic.
• Negative aspects: Critical thoughts, fear, emotional fragility, depression, impulsiveness, anxiety, cowardice, and lack of compassion.

ORANGE

Dynamic and radiant, this color conveys a friendly and confident feeling. Some examples of its use are the logos Orange (French multinational telecommunications company), EasyJet and Lufthansa (British and German airlines respectively), Fanta, Amazon, and Blogger among others.

• Positive aspects: Sociable, optimistic, enthusiastic, independent, outgoing, adventurous, creative, and informal.
• Negative aspects: Superficial, insincere, dependent, exhibitionist, pessimistic, cheap and very proud.

Purple

Purple is a color that reflects creativity and transmutation in its purest form, as well as imagination and wisdom. It is the main color of companies like Yahoo, Cadbury, Hallmark, and Milka.

• Positive aspects: Unusual, creative, inventive, intuitive, humanitarian, mysterious, fantasy, and future.
• Negative aspects: Immaturity, impractical, cynical, arrogant, fraudulent, corrupt, and delusions of grandeur.

Pink

Pink is a softer version of red that generates feelings of compassion and unconditional love. It is a color that calms rather than stimulates and is always associated with good things. It is the color of charm, courtesy, sensitivity, and sentimentality.

If overused it can appear cheesy and immature. In addition, it must be taken into account that it is a color that is associated with the feminine.

• Positive aspects: Calm, innocence, hope, optimism, femininity, kindness, sensitivity, dreamy, love and peace.
• Negative aspects: Weak, discriminating, cheap, garish, cheesy, immature, shallow, and powerless.

Gray

Although many times it is omitted or ignored, gray establishes the balance between white and black, giving an appearance of solemnity, neutrality, and calm. Some brands that have made use of this color are Wikipedia, Apple, and Honda.

• Positive aspects: Modern, solemnity, neutrality, calm, elegant, authoritative, refined, dignified.
• Negative aspects: harsh, unclean, reserved, quiet, unhappy, depressed, refined, urban.

Black

It is a strong color that is associated with sophistication, elegance, seriousness, and independence. It is the result of the absence of all colors and completely lacks light.

It is a mysterious color that if used in excess can be a negative color that brings sadness. It is often associated with death, violence, and mystery.

• Positive aspects: Strength, formal, sophisticated, serious, seductive, mysterious, elegant, and objective.
• Negative aspects: Death, melancholy, grief, violence, evil, negativity and selfishness.

White

White is the lightest color and is associated with purity, innocence, cleanliness, and integrity. It is considered as the color that represents perfection. It is also considered to represent a new beginning.

Being a very bright color that contains all the other colors in equal parts, it acts as the perfect balance. It is advisable not to use too much white as it can cause feelings of loneliness and emptiness.

• Positive aspects: Neutral, hygienic, clean, refreshing, clarity, sophisticated, purity, simplicity, innocence, hope, and optimism.
• Negative aspects: Coldness, loneliness, barriers, unfriendly, empty, and indecisive.

The combination of colors

As we show you, color plays a decisive role in the way we perceive reality, and in the construction of a commercial brand. In Branding and Visual Communication, its importance resides fundamentally in the way in which the client perceives the color in the corporate identity at first sight.

Different color combinations and their play with typography can result in a great variety of designs with different interpretations at the same time.

If you want to find the perfect connection between the typography, the shape of the logo, and the color palette of your signature, Let investigate some perfect tools to help you achieve the best colors for your brand.

The unmatched duo of black and white.

They are almost always used together, and as a pair, it is perhaps the best combination and the one that never fails! They convey the feeling of seriousness, sobriety, wealth, reputation, and delicacy. They are the colors used by companies like Cartoon Network, Puma, Nike, Louis Vuitton, and Mercedes Benz.

Tools to create an online color palette

Although you can be inspired by other brands, you can also use free online tools to create and generate color combinations that help you choose. These are the ones to highlight.

Coolors

Link to the app: Coolors

With this tool, you can generate colors and combinations quickly and easily, by clicking the Space key on your keyboard.

Also, if you’ve already chosen a color for your palette, you can manually add the color code in a column and press the padlock. Thus, you can search for combinations for that color you chose.

Color Picker

Link to the app: Color picker

The first thing you should do when entering Color Picker is to choose the color that you like the most. Next, you will have to choose a formula for combining colors (monochrome, complementary, etc.).

It also allows you to search for colors by tone using RGB, Hex, HSL or CMYK values.

Color Lovers

Link to the app: Color Lovers

It is a website where users upload their own color palettes to receive some feedback from other users.

If you want to create one, at the top right you will get the option to Create. You can try and create your palette with the colors you like the most and then upload it and receive feedback.

Paletton

Link to the app: Paletton

This is very useful for choosing the colors that will work best on your website. After selecting the colors, it will automatically create a sample website for you with the selected colors to give you an idea of ​​how it would look.

You can even try a white or darker background. This will be key to make all the modifications you want before starting with the design and its structure.

Colrd

Link to the app: Colrd

Through photographs, you can see the color palette that was used. You can search for images by theme for inspiration.

In the Create option, you can make your own palette so that you get a more visual idea. Finally, you can also upload the image you want and thus generate the color palette.

Final thoughts

It is not about choosing your favorite color palette, but you also have to take into account the target audience and the personality of your brand.

As we have seen in this post, there are other factors that we must assess when creating our palette according to the values of the brand of our business.

We refer to further study the psychology of colors, the chromatic circle, or the formulas that exist to combine colors, helping you with the online tools that we all have at our disposal.

Do you have any other tips or tools to create the best colors for your brand? Let us know in the comment.