If you haven’t heard of the color theory, you may want to come out of your hibernation hole and listen up! Because colors are everywhere. And colors are pretty important – especially as a tool for branding your business.

Did you know there is a strategy behind color branding? Having a solid understanding of color psychology is key. So this shouldn’t be taken lightly, and I do recommend seeking out professional advice, whether that’s me or someone else.

As a branding strategist and web designer, I want you to know what you are getting into before you start closing your eyes and picking your brand’s colors at random. In this post, I want to explain the color types and personalities and how to choose yours. I promise it is a vital step to establishing a memorable brand for your business!

Why are colors important in branding?

The underlying goal of branding is being able to shape and influence your consumer’s perception through colors. Colors have a direct correlation with your brand identity. Your branding colors can even impact the performance of your business! That’s some powerful stuff, right there.

There is a psychological and emotional reaction from colors, so choosing the right ones for your business can establish a clear message to your audience right from the get-go. Colors are more than just pretty hues. So, let’s talk about these emotions!

Emotional responses from colors

Did you know emotions drive purchasing decisions? Savvy marketing strategists know this. Colors elicit different emotional responses or feelings from humans, even down to the different shades. This emotional response can directly affect the perception of your brand. This is important for enticing your potential customers to trust you with their money. So choose your colors wisely!

How to choose your branding colors

A brand’s color provides audiences with a shortcut view into a company’s story or history. This establishes a strong brand-to-customer connection. And everybody wants to feel connected to brands these days. Colors help this happen.

But don’t just pick a color at random! You need to choose your colors carefully because they have a direct impact on your brand identity. Colors are known to increase brand recognition by up to 80%. Think about Twitter’s sky-blue bird or Target’s bright red target. Those brands are irrevocably linked with their branding colors. Can you imagine a purple Target?

Know your brand identity

Before you choose your brand colors, you need to determine your brand identity. Do you want to be known for being playful, classic, luxurious, modern, mature, youthful, loud, or feminine? There are so many other personalities out there too. You can break these questions down into six topics: gender, tone, value, time, age, energy.  This will help determine what personality your brand best identifies. And this is only the first step.

Once you’ve established what emotions or personality your brand wants to elicit from your audience – the next steps are choosing your colors.

Choose your base (neutral) colors

Start your color branding off with neutral colors. Cool neutral colors could be whites, silvers, grays while warm neutral colors could be blacks, golds, beiges, tans, and browns. Having this base of colors will be helpful when you move toward your 2-3 big main colors.

Choose your accent (eye-popping/main) colors

These colors will be the main representation of your brand. Ideally, you want them to pop or stand out from your neutral colors.

To best come up with your main colors, knowing the psychology behind these hues will be helpful going forward. As I mentioned before, you’ve already chosen the feelings you want your brand to emit from your customers. Matching those feelings with correlating colors will be helpful in this step.

Let’s take a look at the types of colors and the emotional meaning they exude.

Color Types

There are 12 commonly used colors within branding. Knowing both the negative and positive connotations of these colors will help guide your brand personality.

Color perceptions, like many things, vary from people to people. However, enough psychology studies have been done to establish some general guidelines to the goals of color branding.

• Red – Romance, danger, strength, aggression, fearlessness, excitement, defiance, anger, bold, courageous, 
• Blue – Serenity, trust, strength, expertise, security, peace, loyalty, aloofness, uncaring, emotionless, coldness, unfriendliness
• Yellow – Optimism, warmth, extraversion, positivity, intellect, happiness, cowardice, anxiety, irrationality, caution, frustration
• Orange – Energy, enthusiasm, efficiency, speed, cheerful, confident, friendly, immaturity, frustration, ignorance, sluggishness
• Purple – Wisdom, creativity, imagination, sophistication, wise, luxury, conceit, decadence, suppression, extravagance, moodiness
• Green – Harmony, nature, health, hope, balance, growth, prosperity, stagnation, envy, boredom, blandness
• Magenta – Transformation, creative, innovative, passionate, imaginative, eccentricity, flippancy, outrageousness, nonconformity
• Gray – Intelligence, reliability, balance, timelessness, neutrality, strength, dampness, lack of energy, blandness, lack of confidence, depression
• Turquoise – Healing, inspiration, communication, calmness, clarity, aloofness, secrecy, unreliability, boastfulness
• Black – Sophistication, elegance, power, authority, security, sophistication, coldness, evil, mourning, menacing, oppression
• White – Simplicity, purity, clarity, sophistication, cleanness, elitism, sterility, isolation, coldness, emptiness
• Brown – Seriousness, support, earthiness, warmth, authenticity, conservativeness, dirtiness, sadness, humorlessness, heaviness

Conclusion

The important part of the color theory and your brand personality is to know what you/your business is trying to communicate. How do you want your customers to feel as they navigate through your site, or experience your products or services? Once you know this, your branding colors will be easy to choose. Colors are important for your brand identity and will propel your business right from the start.

Does this sound overwhelming? I am here to help! If you need anything or have questions about your branding – you can contact me here.