How to Choose the Right Color Palette for Your Brand

Know what – and how – your audience feels.

Colors have been proven to impact our emotions and behaviors through the practice of color theory. Certain colors evoke certain emotions and influence our spending habits in different ways. The color red is bold and evokes feelings of energy and confidence. It has also been proven to stimulate your appetite, which may explain why many food and drink companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Red Robin, and Heinz use the color in their branding. The color blue symbolizes trust, intelligence, and progress, which is why it’s popular among technology and social media companies such as Facebook, Twitter, HP, and Intel. Orange is associated with being energetic and active; yellow signifies cheer and optimism; green symbolizes natural healing; and black evokes luxury, sophistication, and authority. Consider what emotions you want your consumer to feel or how you want your brand to be perceived, and explore colors in that corresponding color family.

Know your competition.

Assess the color palettes of other companies in your field of work. Is there a similar theme among them? The tech and financial industries, for example, are known for blue. The food and drink industry leans toward warm colors like red and yellow. Neutrals are popular among luxury brands, and greens are a popular choice for health and wellness companies. Do your research exploring your competitor’s color schemes and logo designs. While you may not want to replicate them exactly, they can provide inspiration as well as help showcase which primary colors and tones are most popular and most effective in your industry.

Types of color palettes

There are three primary types of colors palettes: monochromatic, analogous, and complementary palettes. Monochromatic palettes mean that your palette is composed of several shades of the same color in an array of lighter and darker tones. An analogous color palette includes pigments that are next to each other on the color wheel. This means a selection of all warm colors such as red and yellow or all cool tones such as blue and green. A complementary color palette includes colors opposite each other on the color wheel. Complementary palettes are composed of both warm and cool colors, which creates more dimension and balance. Examples of complementary colors include blue and orange or pink and teal. Whichever color palette you choose, make sure to add both light and dark tones as well as neutrals to allow for contrast and versatility in application.

Choose dominant and secondary shades

Although it’s good to choose 5 or 6 colors to include in your color palette, just one or two of them should be used as your dominant color. This is the main color used in prominent features such as your logo or large content blocks on your website. It is essentially the color that you want to be known for, such as Tiffany’s signature shade of blue or T-Mobile’s signature shade of pink. Secondary shades allow for versatility and practical usability and implementation, but your dominant colors should be your signature shades.

Your brand’s color palette is its identity, and it should accurately reflect your company’s tone, industry, and desire for its consumers. You want to evoke the right emotions and elicit a response that increases spending on your product or service. If you need help getting started on designing your business’s logo, website, or other color-dependent components, we at IDG Advertising can help you. Give us a call at (714) 221-4377 today for more information.