The Big 7: How the Psychology of Colors Affects Your Brand Strategy
When you are thinking about your business website, logo and marketing materials, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by options of colors, fonts and designs.
In design school for marketing and advertising I had to take color theory, where we played with various colors, perspectives, depths and other optical illusions to lead us into developing a full brand identity, ads and more.
There are so many ways to show up online — and the colors / fonts you choose can give your audience a specific feeling about who you are and how you do what you do. If this is overwhelming — do not worry! You probably already know what you like and don’t like, this will give you some added insight.
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YELLOW: Using the color yellow will evoke a sense of optimism, clarity and warmth in your logo and web colors. Be careful however, that you do not use it without a secondary color or it may not work well.
Also, yellow and red are almost always used in fast food chains. The common ketchup and mustard colors invoke a sense of hunger, especially in American brands, so if you plan to use red and yellow for a non-food company, use it wisely.
ORANGE: Orange is known for bringing out feelings of friendliness, cheerfulness and confidence.
RED: Excitement, youthfulness and boldness are the emotions people feel when seeing red. It is often considered a sexy color, but should definitely NOT be overused. Like yellow, it can be very overwhelming as a standalone color, unless you are using a darker shade.
PURPLE: The use of purple is typically for royalty, creativity, imaginative and wise brands. The color can be combined with black or gray, which is the scheme I use. Pops of teal can also offset the boldness of the black and purple so it’s not as harsh on the eye.
BLUE: This color you find often in the banking industry, financial services, the military, etc. Blue in all of its shades evokes a sense of strength, dependability and trust.
GREEN: This color is highly versatile — used widely by Eco-friendly companies but also to represent peace, growth and health. Green blended with multiple earth tones works well for so many types of companies.
BLACK/GREY: Using light to dark shades of gray in a logo can create a neutral, calm and balanced feeling. Companies like Apple use this color palette to create a clean, modern and high tech look to their logo and products.
Typically white is used for negative space in design, however, as you could see in the color theory diagram, using black gives a very different look. Most often, using white is easier for people to read unless the designer does a great job with a black background. Also for printing purposes, I would recommend using a white background unless you get prints done professionally using the correct paper.
Other things to consider:
What type of look and feel do you want? There are color palettes that were common in certain eras of design (remember the colors of furniture and carpet in the ‘70s?)
Do you want to appear modern, vintage, reliable, comforting, professional, high-tech or old-fashioned. None of these options are wrong, but whatever you choose should do two key things: Represent YOU well, and ATTRACT your ideal clients to you. If you do the first, the second will take care of itself.
Part of this is choosing a color palette. Most color palettes include black/white/grey in some form, with a very definite focal color. Research has shown that the colors we select say more about us than you’d think.
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Have fun experiment and definitely ask other people for honest feedback. If you start out using a color scheme that you love, but it becomes outdated, don’t be afraid to change it up.
[CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD MY FREE BRANDING CHECKLIST]
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Kalen Arreola is a recovering digital agency owner who now focuses on branding using her “Zero B.S. Brand Methodology” to help small to mid-size businesses increase sales through well crafted websites and marketing funnels. Learn more at www.kalenmarieconsulting.com.
