As per research conducted by Seoul International Color Expo, around 85% of the participants (consumers) consider color as the biggest factor while selecting a product. Furthermore, 92% assure that they give a high degree of importance to the visual appearance of a product.
Colors induce feelings and inspiration, in addition to the same, they pass on a certain message from a brand. This empowers potential customers to shape an underlying understanding of the brand without having to know its nitty-gritty. Set forth plainly, tones and colors associated with a brand are incredible in assisting customers with choosing whether or not they connect with the brand.
Brand Color: A Battle Worth Fighting
Allegedly, Cadbury’s majestic purple, otherwise known as Pantone 2865c, was picked as a recognition color for Queen Victoria. Over 100 years of age, Cadbury, initially endeavored to get the color trademarked in the year 2004. Unfortunately, this began a chocolate battle between Cadbury and Nestle, who contended it wasn’t adequately peculiar to claim. Fast forward a few struggles and years, in the year 2008, Cadbury got its trademark, demonstrating the importance of colors in brand design.
Considering all the importance, there has been a lot of research into color psychology and color theory. With this, brand experts realized that a single color cannot be enough to present effective branding. Imagine a single color on the website, for its font, its logo, and its product packaging materials. It does not sound easy on the eyes, does it? Thus, an entire concept of color palette set foot into designing a brand. As selecting colors for creating a color palette can sound tricky, here are some options to give you a clearer idea of which color combinations can enhance your brand in its entirety:
Read more: How A Color Combination Can Strengthen The Entire Design
As Cool as Ice
With blue being one of the most used colors, not many of us realize how many of its tones and shades are equally mesmerizing when combined with each other (and some other shades from other color families):
Dark Blue, Emerald Green, and White
In this color scheme, as dark blue gives a sense of professionalism, authority, and intelligence, emerald green hints to the viewers that the company has its eyes on expansion and growth. Together, dark blue, emerald green, and white form a color combination that represents freshness, calmness, and simplicity held high by the company.
Deep Aqua and Seafoam
A color combination of green in seafoam, blue in deep aqua, and some shades of ocean and electric blue can not only help you create aesthetic visuals centered on a monochromatic theme but will also reach out to your minimalistic audience more effectively as compared to a combination of strong, catchy colors. Thus, if your target audience is youth, this color combination could be the color palette for your brand.
Related: Red, White, and Blue. Seven rules about color palettes that everyone should know.
Down to Earth
When we think of companies related to sustainability, nature, and organic products, we straight up start imagining graphics in green. However, taking it a step above, combining a color combination of green and other earthy colors can help you represent a lot more.
Forest Green, Lime, and Earth
In the event that you have a company that requires the visuals to be surrounding shades of green, a color range highlighting greens and browns is a much better decision. Also, instead of including the run-of-the-mill dull colors, this color palette lights up things with a sprinkle of lime green.
Bronze, Orange, and Seaweed Green
If your brand offers products to be used during the autumn and winter seasons and wants to create a cozy appeal to attract the target demographic, this color palette can do wonders for you. While bronze gives a peek of stability of the brand and quality of products, orange balances it with its energy-inducing shades.
Summer in a Palette
As a brand confident to seem approachable or looking for a way to put a creative spin and have a color palette of vibrant colors, the following two are the best color combinations that could help you with every aspect of branding, including connecting with customers and creating eye-catching designs.
Yellow, Green, and Pink
To be specific, sunflower yellow, leafy green, and bright pink can be combined to create a color palette that could go for music-based brands, and experience curating companies, and fast-food restaurants. McDonald’s, for perspective? As such industries require arresting designs more than other industries, for instance: IT, this color combination can do the job effectively.
Salmon, Cherry Red, and Off White
This cheerful combination of toned yet vibrant colors can perk up design for most visuals that a company requires: website color combination, logo color combination, even for marketing materials such as flyers and brochures. If you are going for a contemporary look, this color scheme is more than perfect.
Aligning Brand Guidelines with Color Combinations
Once you land on a color combination for your brand design, it is important to make sure that it is in alignment with other elements of your brand. Best way to ensure that is by implementing a brand guideline in your organization. Not only will it be handy when you want to communicate your brand identity to clients or partners, but will also inform the reader about the values and principles of your brand.
Also, read: 21 Brand Style Guide Examples for Visual Inspiration
Before you let a thought like “I am just starting up, I do not need a brand guideline” enter into your mind, let me clarify that a brand guideline will act as oxygen to your company the more and sooner you take it, the better the chances are that your brand will outgrow your expectations. All in all, a brand guideline and well-thought color combination for your brand are crucial regardless of its size and other aspects.
- Creating a brand image as planned.
- Understanding and factorizing the corporate brand identity elements.
- Structuring the essential brand information in a single document.
- Helping employees with the relevant knowledge and goals of the brand.
- Increasing efficiency and effectiveness of branding and marketing activities.
As a set of brand colors and other brand identity elements are set for upcoming years, all this information in one place can certainly help a brand become more organized and effective in – not only branding – but all activities.
Head of Design at DesignBro and is responsible for UI/UX Design, managing the global designer community, and ensuring quality levels of both designers and designs remain high.
