Color Theory: The Role of Color in Creating an Effective Brand & Website
Authored by Nathan Tia & Sarena Douglass
Every year, women all over the world eagerly anticipate the coveted Tiffany & Co. box. Used as a token to commemorate many a special occasion, be it Christmas, Valentine’s Day, an anniversary, or a birthday, it has, no doubt, become the harbinger of love, loyalty, and special relationships.
The company, recognizing the power of its signature robin egg blue color, decided to trademark the color and standardize it, enabling it to be manufactured and printed consistently and preventing competitors from employing it in their branding. The color now has its very own custom Pantone® Matching System (PMS) number — “Blue 1837,” signifying the year Tiffany & Co. was founded.
With its trademark rights, Pantone® №1837, colloquially known as “Tiffany Blue”, is not published in PMS swatch books, and is not available for use in other branded material, which begs the question:
“What makes a color so valuable?”
To understand this, we need to delve into color theory and understand the indelible effect colors have on the human psyche, and subsequently on branding.
Personas: Creating the Foundation of a Well-Loved Brand
It’s not unusual for a child to take a toy, say, a stuffed animal like a teddy bear, and give it a name, pretending it’s a person with feelings, emotions, and personality traits. Marketing & design teams do the very same thing, but instead, with products that are going to market. In the world of branding, taking an inanimate object and personifying it is “the secret sauce” to defining a brand’s persona, which refers to the traits of a brand.
Determining a brand’s point of view, tone, and voice gives us a more complete picture of the brand’s personality. This persona is typically defined by 5 different dimensions or traits:
1. Sincerity: Is the brand’s persona down-to-earth? Is it honest? Wholesome? Cheerful? An example of a sincere brand is the Michelin Man™.
2. Excitement: Is the brand daring? Is it imaginative and innovative? An example of an exciting brand is Disney™.
3. Competence: Is the brand reliable? Is it intelligent? Successful? An example in this category is Allstate®.
4. Sophistication: Is the brand charming? Is it luxurious? Prestigious? An example here would be Rolex®.
5. Ruggedness: Is the brand tough? Is it hardened? Outdoorsy? An example of a rugged brand is Brawny® Paper Towels.
Like people, brand personas have a mix of these five different dimensions, but we tend to categorize them by their most dominant dimension. Once we’ve identified a brand’s persona, we align it to colors and other facets (such as fonts, iconography, etc.), representing this personality best in the context that it is being applied (such as the industry, primary audience, product, etc.). In effective branding, these additional facets are intended to trigger positive associations between inanimate objects and brand attributes (i.e. friendly, fast, convenient, comforting). This has a favorable impact on brand identity and influences future behavior.
Let’s look at an example. It has been shown that color can help increase brand recognition by 80%.
If we dissect a household brand like McDonald’s, we see that in the right context, the “Golden Arches” are intended to immediately spark a sensory domino effect; it’s almost impossible not to visualize the familiar McDonald’s® red cardboard fries container, which then triggers the smell of warm, salty fries. This Pavlovian response — effectively invoking the smell or taste of French fries — is caused to motivate a trip to McDonald’s.
While color is only one element in a branding toolkit, which also encompasses typography, photography, and iconography as equally important members, we recognize its powerful ability to communicate a brand’s persona and would like to explore this value further.
The Use of Color in Branding
Since the beginning of time, color has played a fundamental role in daily life. Humans are hardwired to respond to colors, which could signal danger (as in the discoloration of rotting food) or safety (the familiar colors of a tribal flag). Color has been, and continues to be, an integral part of providing meaningful information.
There are two main ways through which people derive the meaning of colors: natural association and psychological/cultural association.
1. Natural association is the inherent association of colors in the natural world (the color of the ocean, sky, trees, etc.) to their biological attributes (e.g. the level of ripeness of fruit ready to be picked, or the prevalence of dangerous weather conditions based on the changing color of the sky from blue to an ominous green). In addition, it includes biological factors that are impacted by the wavelength or frequency interval of a color (such as the effect on circadian rhythm by the blue light emitted by some electronic devices).
2. Psychological / Cultural association is the meaning we attach to colors based on what we’ve been taught through culture and/or religion.
Color theory helps us understand how culture, gender, religion, and current market trends affect our perception of color, ultimately ensuring that brand colors are congruent with the message intended for our audience. When we’re having brand conversations with clients, we look at color theory through both natural and cultural lenses.
Let’s take the color blue for example; it has a natural association to water or the sky. Culturally, it has a masculine association in the US, whereas in China, it is considered a feminine color. This is an example of how associations made to a certain color can vary depending on geographical or cultural factors, making it important to understand the context in which a company’s brand and collateral will be presented. This is even more critical for global brands who need to find colors that work for many different markets without inadvertently making any faux-pas; this is why focus groups and consumer testing are a crucial part of the process for rolling out a product worldwide or launching a global version of a website.
Color Conventions for Different Industries & Messaging
The use of color in branding is especially interesting when you consider patterns that emerge across industries. Historically, when enough companies started using a particular color, the industry became associated with it by virtue of this use. For example, blue is generally associated with care, honesty, and sincerity. We associate hospitals and health care with the color blue; it’s not surprising then that blue is also a common color for scrubs. Established corporations, in general, also tend to lean on blue because of their desire to communicate stability, trust, and honesty.
While stereotypical color patterns hold true for many industries, that isn’t always the case today, as color now plays a more important role in differentiating competitors from one another, or to serve as a subliminal messaging tool.
An example of subliminal messaging with color is using green with food products to whet one’s appetite. When we buy vegetables, we want to see green labels, which is evocative of natural, fresh ingredients. Most of us wouldn’t want to pick up a box of broccoli in brown or bright purple packaging. The same is true even in the meat industry, where green is used in some meat packaging to evoke images of pastures, fields, and farms.
In other more competitive product categories, such as beverages, traditional food color labeling conventions don’t always apply. Beverages are marketed as an impulsive grab-and-go product, and bold, bright colors (such as red) are often used. But even so, there’s a pretty good chance that green will appear somewhere on the packaging.
Red also comes up in highly competitive product lines because of it’s intense, attention-grabbing quality. It can be cheerful, passionate, or cautionary. For example, we see its use in the hot sauce market to convey heat (and caution!).
Color can also be used to denote perceived value. We often see black being used to represent luxury brands. Black can be perceived as sleek and exclusive, or having great engineering. It’s also often used to represent intelligence. We see this with the Amex Black Card, which is so exclusive that it’s not even possible to apply for the card — it can be obtained by invitation only.
Value and exclusivity come in many forms. Purple, for example, has always been associated with royalty. The reason for this may have something to do with how difficult it was in ancient times to create purple dyes. These dyes were extracted from Murex rock snails, in a manner that involved tens of thousands of snails and an enormous amount of labor, making it very expensive. Here we see color being associated with value based on economic factors and the scarcity of materials. A perfect example of a brand using purple (and a crown motif) to associate itself with royalty is Crown Royal®.
Apple® has one of the greatest branding stories of all time, making it one of the world’s most valuable brands. They took the color white — which typically represents purity, innocence, simplicity, and perfection — and shifted its associations among consumers to quality and innovation. Their minimalist style is perfectly represented by their brand color white — a blank canvas. In their case, color is a powerful tool in creating and sustaining their brand image, and outlasting trends.
The next time you’re out and about, take a look at product packaging, logos, and signage. You may begin to notice how prevalent and widespread these branding practices are.
Digitizing Your Brand’s Color Palette
Colors don’t always translate perfectly from print to digital, and vice versa. If we receive a color palette from a client that’s been primarily used for print materials, we find that it doesn’t always look great on the web. For instance, a metallic color, like gold, can look fantastic in print, but on the web, it may not hold its luster, and can instead appear muddied.
In a recent website redesign project, we guided a client through the process of changing their brand colors. We presented a new look and feel that steered away from their previous pastel-heavy palette. As part of this process, we worked with them to bump up the saturation of the palette, giving it a new, bolder look. Because pastels tend to appear washed out on the web, the new color palette helped the designs and the overall brand stand out more. It is important to strike a balance, however, because too many bold colors can cause eye strain.
Not every client requires or wants an extensive evaluation of their branding. Often, we leverage existing brand assets — in some cases expanding on and enhancing them. One way we do this is by exploring additional color options to augment a client’s primary palette. Many of our clients request incremental changes to evolve their brand over time. In these scenarios, elements like color can be introduced gradually, so that the changes aren’t jarring to users.
However, there are instances where a more drastic approach can be a good thing. Brands that need a completely new reintroduction to the market could benefit from a brand reset. This drastic change may help generate excitement, and also tap into new audience opportunities (for example, brands that shift their focus from snacks to healthy treats).
Beyond branding, color can also play an important role in content-heavy sites. For example, color can be used to establish taxonomy rules by associating colors with specific content types (i.e. video, article, case study, etc.).
Color & Accessibility
An added, critical aspect that we consider when choosing the right color palette for a client’s brand is accessibility. When solving for accessibility on the web, color can be a critical design choice. About 8% of men and 0.5% of women the population haves some form of color blindness, with red-green colorblindness being the most common.
Here are a few things that we focus on:
· We make sure to use appropriate contrasts. Good contrast between the color of the text and that of the background improves visibility and readability.
· We look out for any additional cues that might be necessary when using color to represent information. This is especially relevant in our data visualization work. For example, if we are going to use red and green to indicate a positive or negative value, we also label it “positive” or “negative”. Alternatively, we could forgo color as a differentiation tool altogether (especially, for instance, if a document might be printed in black and white), and use patterns instead to represent different values.
In our recent work with Mass.gov, we adhered to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) and designed the solution to be Level AA compliant. When we were developing the color palette, we chose colors that met appropriate contrast levels for text and essential design elements. Non-essential design elements offered some flexibility with regards to contrast. We also found ways to use tricky colors while still addressing accessibility needs. For example, a specific shade of yellow was added for warmth, knowing that it could only be used in non-essential elements as an accent color.
Coming Full Circle: What Makes Color So Valuable?
As we can see from our exploration of the psychology of color and the tenets of branding, the importance of Tiffany’s “Blue 1837” does not come from its vibrational frequency. Instead, its value is based on the association between that color of the Tiffany box and the experience (such as a flutter of excitement, a warm sensation of being cherished, or a sense of pride and importance) of receiving the jewelry housed in it.
This represents a core principle of branding: when done correctly, branding infuses the customer with a felt sensory experience — one that surpasses logic and taps into the emotional centers of the brain. And as we have seen, colors go a long way to create this desired effect.
The effective use of color can also ensure that experiences across digital touchpoints are aligned with the overarching brand and that all target audiences feel supported and valued by the brand.
Have you been considering an update to your brand and color palette? Are you looking to make subtle or drastic changes to how color is represented on your website and other marketing collateral? Join the discussion via the comments below or Tweet Us @Velir, and feel free to reach out to us with questions you may have regarding your own brand. We’re passionate about the topic and we’d love to provide any insights we can to help you out!
