“Design is the silent ambassador of your brand.” – Paul Rand.

Brand colours are no doubt one of the most integral parts that inform people about your brand. Brand colours to a large extent give clients and intending client perception about what your brand entails.

When you see some colours, what automatically comes to your mind is the brands that use the colours. Let’s use Red for example, when we see the colour red, what comes to most people’s minds is Coca-Cola or Netflix. These brands have used their brand colours to create a lasting impression in the mind of both users and non-users.

As a brand owner, it is important to take cognizance of how the selection of colours can send the right message to your target audience. Your brand’s colours should be integrated across your site, your landing pages, your logo, your product, and any other collateral that you’re creating. Stronger branding increases the impact of seeing the right use of colours making an impact on your business.

However, the effect that colours on our emotions differs from person to person based on gender, cultural context, personal experience, and neurological variances, there are some general guidelines that have been borne out by countless colour psychology studies have.

play of colours

What Red means to group A might contradict what it means to group B. For some people, Red signifies danger, they use the Red colour as a warning signal too, while to some, Red colour implies Romance. Blue to some people depicts calmness, and to some it depicts secrecy. In essence, colours depict different meanings to different people, notwithstanding, we have some general meanings to some colours.

According to the brand colour psychology graph, Blue seems to be the winning colour, as it shows up in 33% of the top 100 brands. Red comes second by showing up in 29% of the brands, and black or greyscale makes the third most popular choice with 28%. Finally, 13% use yellow or gold.

It is interesting to note that 95% of the top 100 brands only use one or two colours. This can be explained as an attempt to maintain consistency by staying simple in their branding.

Take a look at Netflix for example, their brand colour is Red and white, the main idea of the logo is that a viewer gets to the cinema without leaving his house. The logo transfers this meaning using designing features to affect associations and avoid obvious symbolism at the same time.

Here are tips to know before picking your brand colours.

Choose a colour that is appropriate in your industry: when picking brand colours, the first question you should ask yourself is “Is this colour appropriate in my field?” 

The reason for this is that it might be a turnoff to people when you use a colour that is totally absurd or different from what people use in the industry.

You might be thinking of using a colour that is completely unique and different from what other people in the industry are using, but do not derail from the appropriate colours that are used in the industry.

Use a colour that speaks about your brand personality: colour is one of the most immediate ways to express brand personality. Choosing a colour that embodies your brand personality is critical to building a consistent and cohesive brand experience.

Babsomocommunications, for instance, choose the purple colour because it identifies some of their core values, it indicates creativity, dignity and royalty while the other colours they used indicate their credibility, reliability and capability.

Choose a colour that speaks to your target audience: Knowing what your target audience wants is the core factor of branding. So you need to pick a colour that appeals to them. Depending on who your target audience is, pick the colour that resonates with them. For example, your brand is about the LGBT, you already know that colours like blue, orange, red must be included in your brand colour. Your audience traits should align with your colour selection.

Choose a colour that is unique to your brand: Another thing to look out for when picking your brand colour is uniqueness, be careful of choosing a colour that is ubiquitous, as your brand might be mistaken for another brand.

Try to choose a colour that none of your competitors is using. It will help your brand stand out. Note that a competitive brand audit is the best way to do a survey of the colours your top competitors are using so you can identify opportunities for differentiation.

Let’s take a look at some of the major colours used in branding and their psychological effect on humans.

One of the most famous colour theorists, Faber Birren, wrote extensively on the link between colours and our emotional state, particularly in his book Color Psychology and Color Theory. Different colours have the psychological effect it plays to the human mind, when people see certain colours it immediately creates imagination in their mind, but one thing to always note is that colour depiction varies based on culture, gender, context etc.

Colour Red 

Coca Cola Logo

One of the most used and stirring colours, Red is the colour of heightened emotion, strength, and power. It’s invigorating, intimidating, and it’s never boring.

The colour red tends to encourage appetite hence why brands like Coca Cola use it often in their branding. They also use words like happiness in their branding so they use the colour red to build excitement. YouTube likely uses the colour red due to the excitement of watching videos online

Red has been shown to reduce analytical thinking—it speeds up and intensifies our reactions.

Colour Yellow

Yellow the colour of sunshine, hope, and happiness, has conflicting associations. On one hand, yellow stands for freshness, happiness, positivity, clarity, energy, optimism, enlightenment, remembrance, intellect, honour, loyalty, and joy, but on the other, it represents cowardice and deceit. A dull or dingy yellow may represent caution, sickness, and jealousy.

Bright yellow is an attention-getting colour, and when used in combination with black, it creates one of the easiest colour combinations to read and see from long distances. This is why school buses, taxi cabs, and traffic signs are painted yellow and black.

Take a look at Snapchat, their brand logo is yellow, and if we look at most of the filters on the app, it depicts happiness, energy, freshness. Also, look at brands like Ferrari and IKEA, there is this happiness that comes from driving a Ferrari vehicle.

However, one has to be careful when using the yellow colour too, as studies show that babies cry more when they are kept in rooms painted yellow.

Colour orange

Orange which is a mixture of red and yellow is used to draw attention. Orange is a strong and energetic colour that is mostly used by sports brands because of its depiction.

When people see the colour orange, what plays in their mind is “value” little wonder brands like Home Depot capitalised on the colour.

Take a look at Fanta, the colour of the drinks, draws attention and it is believed that once you take the drink you become energetic.

orange evokes comfort like food, warmth, and shelter. It is the colour of sunset, citrus, and pumpkins.

Colour blue

Calmness is one of the major attributes associated with blue.

According to brand colour psychology studies, blue is the most common favourite colour among the world’s population and is particularly preferred by men. It is, of course, everywhere in our daily lives. It’s the colour of the sky, the oceans, and the lakes.

Blue is conceived as a sign of stability and reliability. Blue, is also the colour of sadness and coldness. It is among the least appetizing colours as it is an indicator of spoilage and poison. Weight loss plans suggest you eat food off a blue plate as you’re liable to eat less of it.

Colour purple

Purple which is a mixture of the colour red and blue is known as a balancing colour. Its combination of blue Calmness and Red stimulation creates balance. 

Purple is the colour of royalty and bravery and connotes wealth, luxury, imagination sophistication.

Cadbury for instance uses the colour purple which depicts royalty to their brand. The Cadbury brothers are thought to have picked the colour as a tribute to Queen Victoria.

Note that purple also depicts, suppression, moodiness, inferiority.

Colour black

It is no doubt that black absorbs all colours. Black is depicted as a symbol of power, sadness, evil. Black is timeless and effortlessly stylish

Black is a colour of elegance, brands who use it mostly use it to depict elegance and power. Brands like Lois Vuitton, Prada, Nike, Gucci, Ralph Lauren use black as their major brand colour because it signifies class and elegance.

Colour White

White is the complete opposite of black, while black absorbs colour, white is the reflection and absence. 

White depicts purity, cleanliness and holiness. The main reason why people in the health care sector use it as their major colour. Priests also use the colour as their major regalia colour because of its depiction.

White is the colour of blank slates, symbolizing freshness and new, untarnished beginnings. The sterility that is positive for white in the healthcare sphere can count against it elsewhere.

White can also depict unfriendliness, isolation, emptiness.

Colour grey

Grey depicts sophistication. Grey is the colour of ominous but powerful weather—a cloak over the existence of colour rather than the absence of it. It has a profound effect on the colours around it. 

It depicts neutrality, intelligence, reliability and strength. It is mostly used by tech companies. See companies like apple, micro-studio, WordPress use grey as their major brand logo.

Grey on the other hand also depicts blandness, dampness, lack of energy, and lack of confidence.

The visualization of your brand determines how people perceive your brand, so you have to carefully and thoughtfully select the colours that speak well and are accurate for your brand.

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