Brand colours can cause a stir. Which do you choose? Colours invoke certain qualities in your brand, and bring out characteristics that are important to understand when selecting your company's colour palette. I sat with our Growth Driven Designer to get the low down on the meaning and message various colours convey.
What do your Brand Colours Mean?
Red
Red is an emotionally charged colour with high visibility. It is incredibly powerful and can elicit a physical reaction such as increasing blood pressure, respiration rate and metabolism. Brands use red when they want to be seen as powerful, passionate, energetic and enthusiastic companies.
Think Virgin Group, BBC,Coca-Cola and Adobe.
Orange
Orange combines the energy of red and the happiness of yellow. It is associated with joy, sunshine, and the tropics. Orange represents happiness, creativity, determination, attraction and success.
Examples of brands that use orange include Nickelodean, Orange and Google’s Blogger.
Yellow
Yay for yellow! When used correctly, yellow has a warming effect and arouses cheerfulness, intellect and energy.
Hertz, McDonalds, IKEA and National Geographic make use of yellow as their primary colour.
Green
Green is the most restful colour for the human eye and can improve vision. It symbolises growth, safety, health, harmony and freshness. A darker shade of green is also commonly associated with money and finance.
Brands that have selected green as their primary colour include the likes of The Body Shop, Android and Land Rover.
Blue
Blue is a popular colour choice when it comes to branding as it holds properties of security, trust, loyalty, confidence and honesty. Blue is considered beneficial to both the mind and body and offers a sense of calm.
JP Morgan, Dell, Hewlett Packard, Ford, Volkswagen, Pfizer, Twitter, Facebook and GE are just a few of the brands that use blue as their primary colour.
Purple
Purple combines the stability of blue with the energy of red. In design, dark purples can give a sense wealth and luxury. Light purples are softer and are connected to spring and romance. Purple is associated with wisdom, dignity, independence, creativity and magic.
Cadbury, Hallmark and Yahoo use various shades of purple as their main brand colour.
White
White is the culmination of all the colours in the spectrum and conveys a sense of safety, purity, sterility and cleanliness. White can represent a new beginning or clean slate.
Black
Black is associated with power, elegance, formality and mystery. While it can have negative connotations it does also denote strength and authority. Black is a sophisticated, functional colour and is a firm favourite with brands that market expensive or luxury products.
A number of companies use contrasting black and white with shades of Grey to add impact and balance. Examples here include the iconic Apple, Mercedes, Honda and Wikipedia.
Infographic from The Logo Company
Selecting the right dominant colour for your brand is an important decision and not one to be taken lightly. The colour you choose should set you apart, work with your industry and image and tie to your brand promise.
