Top Tips When Choosing Your Brand Colours

Why is your brand colour palette so important?

When building a brand, your colour palette is one of your most crucial considerations. Along with your tone of voice, fonts and brand values, it helps people understand who you are and why you’re here – which, in turn, attracts the right customers to your brand.

“Choosing the right colours for your brand is like putting the right clothes on in the morning.”
– Head of Design, MOO.

Like a logo, your audience can learn about your brand personality, aesthetic, and industry from your brand colours alone! And nailing your brand colour palette will help determine the look and feel of your company website, business cards, flyers and any other marketing material – keeping your brand consistent and in time, recognisable.

So where do you start when considering brand colours?

Start with some colour inspiration!

Like many people we are driven by our perception of the world around us and what we’ve seen before. So start by creating a mood board of any colours and images you feel align closely with your brand identity. You can find inspiration anywhere – from packaging and fashion to nature and interiors.

Considerate Colour Combinations

It’s important to pick colours that work well together and to find a balance. With the colour combinations below, you can create a strong brand colour palette for your company that works every time:

• Complementary colours are opposites on the colour wheel, like red and green or blue and orange. You often see this colour palette in the food and beverage industry as it stands out on store shelves or street signs (e.g., Fanta, Heineken, Mountain Dew, Taco Bell).
• Analogous colours sit next to each other on the colour wheel, like red, orange, and yellow or blue and purple. Analogous brand colour palettes often have a dominant colour, a supporting colour, and an accent colour (E.g., Mastercard, BP).
• Triadic colours are evenly spaced around the colour wheel and often make for very bright and dynamic colour palettes. The visual contrast and harmony can help your brand pop (e.g., Burger King, Popsicle).
• Monochromatic colours are different shades and depths of the same hue. These colour schemes can be simple to create and look very harmonious (e.g., Oreo, PayPal, Shopify).

When considering your colour combinations it’s essential to identify how your colours will be used and their visual impact. Most interior designers suggest a 60-30-10 rule for colour combinations.

60% – The primary colour of your logos should use 60% of the space and be the underlying theme of the design
30% of the colour should be the secondary colour to create contrast and visual interest.
10% – Use that final colour as an accent feature to provide that final touch of elegance. 

Location, location, location: Colour and Culture

If your brand was a person, how would you describe them? Are you bubbly and fun? Or more serious and professional? There’s no right or wrong answer, but the brand colours you pick should match your company’s overall vibe to better target your audience.

Because of this, it’s important to identify the impact of colour in your target audience cultures. Factors like politics, history, myths, religion, and language can also impact how your audience perceives specific colours, so be aware!

Narrowing one colour down to a single mood or feeling is impossible. But it’s still important to understand these cultural and emotional associations as they can colour (pun intended) how people see your brand.

We’ve made a quick list of some examples to help you get started!

Use a brand colours generator

Play the colour lottery in your next design / brand meeting! It’s always more fun to design in groups, especially if your team is diverse. Get together in your office or go for coffee and start experimenting. Apps like Coolers, Color Hunt, Color Space and Adobe Color make the process fun and simple by allowing you to build a full palette from a single colour.

Where should you put your brand colours?

Short answer: everywhere! You should use your brand colours for any digital or physical assets related to your business, such as:

• Logo
• Business cards
• Invoices
• Social media assets (banners, posts, etc.)
• Website
• Apparel and accessories

Remember: your brand colours are a part of your company’s visual identity. If you want your audience to associate your brand with your brand colours (like Ikea or Starbucks), then you should use your brand colours anywhere your brand ‘shows up’ – online or in real life.

Colours can inspire certain feelings and moods. They can also connect us to our histories and cultures. In short, they can be pretty powerful tools in your creative arsenal – if you use them wisely. So when picking a brand colour palette, keep all these factors in mind, but don’t forget to have fun! Get creative and play with different colours until you find the right combination for your brand.

If you need some extra help with the project then get in touch! Our Creative Team is always on hand to help you and your team find the best combinations for your logo. 

Looking for a new logo or just a brand refresh? We can help with that too! Speak to a member of our Creative Team today: marketing@rokirmedia.com