When it comes to creating a brand image, nothing is more important than choosing the right colours.
Through colour, customers develop a perception of your brand, along with a whole set of associated emotions and feelings.
In choosing the colours for a new brand, you should be looking for tones that express the character of the brand and convey the right message to your audience. The trouble is that colours are countless in their variety, as are the moods associated with them, and finding the right colour palette can be tricky.
WHERE TO START?
Before embarking on the search for the right colour palette, you need to establish a few facts. Here are three guidelines that I use to help me find the right colour for a brand.
KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE: what mood do they need to be in when they become involved with your brand?
KNOW THE BUSINESS: when choosing the colour for your brand, check to see if there is a particular colour associated with the trade, for example, green for nature and outdoor activities. Being unique and different is all very well, but you shouldn’t try to re-invent the wheel. Go with the flow!
KNOW THE CULTURE: colours mean different things in different cultures. In Western cultures, white is the colour of purity, but in some Asian cultures, white is associated with mourning. Colour perceptions change with ethnicity, age, social class, gender and religion.
Once I have defined the mood and message the brand should give, I choose two basics,
contrasting colours, which serve to point me towards the right nuance or feeling.
NAME IT!
There’s an endless variety of colours and it’s impossible to name all of them. Also, each of us has different ways of seeing colours, so it’s often very difficult to describe them. To avoid misunderstandings, colours are identified by numbers following specific systems.
RGB (“red, green, blue”). This system is used in the display of images in computer systems.
CMYK (“cerulean, magenta, yellow, key (black)”). This system is preferred by professional printers.
HEXADECIMAL ("#xxxxxxx") This is a shorthand code for RGB values.
Colours differ from computer screen to mobile phone display. Mobile screens are set to increase the basic brightness of colours, making them very intense. It’s a good idea to check how your chosen colours appear on a mobile screen before deciding, otherwise, you may end up with two very different shades of the same colour.
Luckily, the Internet has some very helpful colour palette generators which you can use to easily create the perfect colour palette.
I’d like to share with you a list of 15 of the coolest websites I use to help me find my colour palette. Try these, and you’ll have no more excuses for a bland palette!
