Intro goes here brand colors
Color can easily be as overwhelming as fonts, especially if you don’t know where to start. First, there are SO many colors to choose from!
What if it looks good to you but not to everyone else? What if you give off the wrong vibe or send the wrong message?
Believe it or not, color actually has the power to evoke a physiological response from the viewer.
This means you can literally cause people to feel things just by using color.
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You can make their heart beat a little faster. You can get them excited, even cause them to feel warm.
Some colors even cause a temporary increase in blood pressure.
We’re not saying all of that to overwhelm you even more. We just want to emphasize the seriousness of a well-thought-out color palette in relation to your unique brand.
Because between the terminology, psychology, and “deeper meanings”, or even just what looks good, it can cause a lot of bloggers to feel stunted. And we definitely don’t want that!
We’ll never forget a client telling us, “I suck at graphics. I don’t know what looks good, I wear polka dots and stripes together and don’t realize there’s anything wrong with it.”
So, if you’re a polka-dots-and-stripes kind of blogger, we’ve got you covered.
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WHAT IS A COLOR PALETTE?
Brand colors are what you’d find in a brand’s color palette that’s used consistently to represent a business.
Most color palettes range from 4-6 individual colors. But, some brands will go as far as to include 8-10 in a variety of different shades which we’ll touch on later in this post.
The thing about your brand’s color palette is that it needs to be more than just a handful of your favorite colors… or, a random color palette you found on Pinterest.
For the sake of transparency, that’s how we found our first color palette for Simplifying DIY Design!
A well-designed color palette has the ability to attract the right audience and communicate the right emotions which make selling a whole lot easier.
Before we can dive into creating your unique color palette, we first need to understand the psychological (or deeper) meaning behind colors
UNDERSTANDING THE DEEPER MEANING BEHIND COLORS
As we said earlier, color has the power to evoke a physiological response such as an increase in heart rate and physical warmth.
Color also has the ability to change a person’s emotions such as sadness or anger.
On a more basic level, color can also attract (or deter!) people based on personalities.
For example, a soft palette consisting of pastel colors wouldn’t accompany a brand personality of tough love but that of compassion. See what we mean?
Now, let’s take a look at primary colors and their meanings.
PRIMARY COLORS
Blue: Can symbolize peace, water, technology or trust. It is one of the most common brand colors for a good reason. The calming effects of the color blue make it a popular choice for many brands such as IBM, Paypal, General Electric, Chase and Facebook.
RED: Can be associated with passion, anger, taking action or danger. Many brands in the food industry use red as this color has also been known to kickstart hunger. Some well known brands that use a red color palette as a part of their brand colors are Coca-Cola, Target, Adobe, Pinterest and Netflix.
YELLOW: Funny story, there was a couple that painted their nursery bright yellow and couldn’t figure out why their baby wasn’t sleeping. Since yellow emphasizes warmth, joy, playfulness and optimism, it was no wonder they couldn’t get their baby to sleep!
What are primary colors? Why are they so important? Primary colors cannot be made from other colors. They’re the source of every other color on the color wheel. Pretty cool, huh?
SECONDARY COLORS
GREEN: Green can represent many ideas such as nature, money, health and sustainability. It is often used by natural food brands or wellness brands. Some examples of popular companies that use green in their brand palette are Starbucks, Whole Foods, John Deere and Land Rover.
ORANGE: Orange is seen as a fun, energetic and stimulating color. It is often used as a color in brands that cater to children such as Nickelodeon or brands with a light-hearted tone. A few other brands that use orange as a brand color are Dunkin’ Donuts, Etsy and Fanta.
VIOLET/PURPLE: Purple is a less common brand color but holds just as much its own meaning as any other color. Purple can often signify royalty, mystery or spirituality. Popular brands that use purple are Cadbury, Yahoo, Taco Bell, and Hallmark.
Knowing that primary colors are the source of all other colors, can you guess what secondary colors are?
Secondary colors are made by mixing two primary colors that are adjacent to each other on the color wheel.
DESIGNING IN ABSOLUTES
Now, let’s say you have a food blog with a brand personality that’s fun and healthy. Does that mean you NEED to have red (hunger), orange (fun), and green (health) in your color palette?
Absolutely not!
- Starbucks doesn’t serve the healthiest drinks in the world, but their brand colors are shades of green
- For most, using/paying with credit isn’t fun, but MasterCard’s primary color is orange
- The thought of Toyota doesn’t generally exhibit passion or anger much less hunger, yet their logo is entirely red
But, it does provide a great jumping-off point if you’re stumped with choosing the right brand colors.
Remember when we said that a color palette needs to be more than just your favorite colors or a random palette you found on Pinterest?
Our first color palette for Simplifying DIY Design came from Pinterest! While we did fall in love with the colors, we also used our knowledge about color to make sure it would attract our intended audience.
What we’re trying to say is that it’s okay to go against the grain. Not everything has to be in absolutes. Your blog is 100% yours and yours alone. Have fun with it!
Speaking of absolutes, there’s some key terminology that we need to cover.
SHADE: Darker variation of a certain color (by adding black)
TINT: Lighter variation of a certain color (by adding white)
WHERE TO FIND COLOR INSPIRATION
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS POST:
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