Choosing the right colors

Understanding how your brand colors affect consumer behavior will help you select the best colors to boost your brand’s awareness and image, whether you are leading a team through a rebranding process or planning to launch a revolutionary new business. Leverage both your knowledge of marketing design and color psychology to elicit a favorable consumer response that fosters brand loyalty. Choosing the right brand colors can completely transform how customers perceive your business.

Study the psychological effects of different brand colors.

The study of how brand colors influence attitudes and actions is known as color psychology. The research underpinning brand color theory allows us to understand color and harness it in branding and marketing—from its meanings and symbolism to its impact on customers. In a sense, every brand color has a backstory that can influence your customers’ attitudes and perceptions.

The well-known brand color examples listed below have done a fantastic job of creating brands that are instantly recognizable by color alone. You can create an instantly recognizable and beloved color scheme by researching the brand image you wish to project and deepening your understanding of color.

Understand the fundamentals of brand color terminology.

The ability to communicate effectively with the design team is crucial for leaders and brand managers. Study and understand the fundamentals if you are not familiar with the terminology associated with brand colors.

Using the appropriate terminology can improve efficiency and precision throughout the brand color selection process. As you develop the color scheme, educate your team so they, too, can articulate their ideas or recommendations.

Here is a brief explanation of brand color terminology you should be familiar with:

Variations of the three primary colors—red, yellow, and blue—are known as color hues. As you may recall, these three hues can be combined to create any other color.

Shade: This is the result of adding black to a color; the amount of black added determines the shade.

Tint: Adding white to a color to make it lighter is the white-based equivalent of a shade.

Color saturation—often referred to as tone—is the process of altering a color’s appearance by combining white and black.

Hue, saturation, and lightness are represented by HSL color codes. The levels and percentages of these three color parameters are most commonly used in web design.

PMS stands for Pantone Matching System, while CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (black). These are used for digital or offset printing.

HEX is short for Hexadecimal Numeral System, while RGB stands for Red, Green, and Blue. These are primarily used for screens, such as in emails and web pages.

Once you are familiar with design terminology and brand color descriptors, you can make more precise requests and adjustments when working with your design team. To create the exact colors you and your team need to enhance your brand image, experiment with various color combinations and settings.

Examine the colors used by competing firms in the market.

Once you are familiar with the theory and vocabulary of brand colors, investigate and evaluate your rivals’ brand colors. Look for ways to use color to differentiate yourself from the competition and to boost brand recognition and preference. When creating a brand color scheme, you must consider contrast and screen readability.

Understanding the reasoning behind your competitors’ brand color choices can help your team make branding decisions that make you stand out, especially since your product often appears alongside theirs—whether on the shelf or online. Use the following questions to learn more about your competitors’ color choices:

Recognize how brand colors influence your visual identity: What brand colors do your direct and indirect competitors use? What aspects of their brand identities are reflected in these choices?

Examine brand reputations: Look at how the public perceives each competitor’s branding and graphic design decisions. You can do this by checking brand review pages and forums, and then conducting a survey with both audiences.

Look for trends in their content: What color schemes do your competitors typically use for specific types of content? Which brand colors work best for content related to marketing, sales, and human resources?

Identify your differentiators: What sets your brand apart from its competitors? Take note of the variations in everything—from the type of information published to the tone of voice and the messages conveyed—and consider how color can be used to reflect these differences.

Talk to brand managers: Speak with brand managers in your network who have previously selected colors. They can often provide valuable insights into how they refined their color choices, the tools or templates they used, and the type of research they conducted (such as focus groups, surveys, or target audience studies).

Use the ideal brand colors to represent your company

Creating a mind map of all the key components of your brand identity is a great way to generate ideas for your color scheme. Discuss color concepts with your marketing team, drawing on insights from your competitor analysis, brand identity, and core values. Consider the qualities that best capture your brand’s essence and appeal to your target market.

Maintain a shared list of terms and traits that define your brand, whether you are rebranding or creating a color scheme for the first time. This list helps ensure an objective perspective and assists your team in developing relevant color concepts. It is easy to view a color scheme based on your own subjective preferences rather than considering how it objectively represents your brand to consumers.

Use a color wheel or a color palette generator to come up with brand color ideas.

Brands can find colors that complement their aesthetic—or a style they wish to emulate—by using a color wheel or palette generator. These tools are an effective way to identify the precise colors for your brand palette, regardless of your design expertise.

Use a color wheel or Canva’s color palette generator to determine your preferred brand colors and ensure they complement one another. The generator also provides the specific color codes you will need for your designs.