What Your Brand Colors Say About Your Business — and What They Don’t

We’ve talked about your brand story, your elevator pitch and how your core values are core to your value proposition. But now it’s time to talk about something a little more visually creative and concrete: your brand colors!

Defining your brand colors is an important element in creating a cohesive visual presence for your business. But why exactly is it important? For one, colors and emotions are closely linked from a scientific standpoint. Colors have the power to make us feel happy or sad, hungry or relaxed. 

Color is perception, after all. It’s our eyes seeing something and our brains telling us what exactly it is that we’re seeing. And people quickly make decisions about things when they see color: they can decide whether they like or feel drawn to a product in 90 seconds or less. And 90% of that decision is based solely on color alone!

With all of this in mind, here’s how you can begin to determine a color palette that is going to encapsulate your brand’s overall messaging and feeling in just a few colors. 

How Many Colors Do You Need?

Depending on how far along you are with your design planning, you may already have a logo in place. And while your brand logo likely has one or two colors in it, the rest of your brand coloring can have a color palette of up to five or six additional complementary colors. 

By having a variety of colors to choose from, you’ll find some flexibility in your marketing down the road with design opportunities. This ensures that your designs stay within a specific color palette, further reinforcing the brand visually for your audience. 

Where Will Your Brand Colors Be Used?

Now it’s time to think about where your colors are going to be used. Your logo is an obvious one, but what about your website and internal or external marketing materials? This can include everything from event space designs to special holiday promotions to brand materials to merchandise and swag and beyond! Your colors will be just about everywhere. 

What Message Do You Want to Convey? 

As we mentioned earlier, all colors convey a specific message whether you realize it or not. So what message do you want to convey with your brand’s colors?

Here’s an easy way to start to get clarity on your brand colors. Try this exercise to focus on the colors your brand embodies:

What colors make you feel good?

What colors are often used in your industry?

What colors do your competitors use?

What colors do your customers like?

Understand the Emotions

We also mentioned that certain colors evoke certain emotions. So let’s figure out what message you want your colors to send to your audience right off the bat. 

For example, at HAVEN, we love all things “teal-quoise”, toggling back and forth between teal and turquoise. Teal-quoise reminds us of the ocean, a calming haven and the blue sky, much like creative thinking.

Now, it’s your turn. Here are some emotions that researchers have found to be linked to certain colors:

Red: passion, bold, energy, physical, leader, confidence, ambition, power

Pink: love, calm, respect, warmth, femininity, care, sensitivity, nurturing

Purple: creativity, unconventional, individual, respectable, fantasy

Navy: trust, order, loyalty, authority, confidence, integrity, masculinity

Green: balance, growth, life, restoration, positivity, prosperity, stability

Blue: perspective, content, control, self-sufficiency, awareness

Orange: reaction, optimistic, spontaneity, extrovert, idea, freedom

Your brand colors are going to matter in the end, because they are going to visually connect you to your target customer or client and help them to recall your brand whenever they see these correlating colors. That’s why it’s important to take some time when considering what colors and color palettes to use in your branding materials!

Not sure how to bring your brand’s vision to life? Work with the experts! Download HAVEN Creative’s free guide and workbook and start determining your brand colors, today. You can also contact one of our HAVEN Mavens™ today to learn more about our workshops and pivot sessions.