Choosing the Right Brand Colors

Your brand colors are one of the most visual ways to convey your brand’s personality and values to customers. That’s why picking the perfect shades for your business is so important. Follow this guide to choose brand colors that will attract your ideal audience.

Know Your Brand Personality

Before you even start looking at color palettes, define your brand personality. What emotions do you want people to feel when they encounter your brand? Common brand personalities include fun, luxurious, reliable, cutting-edge, or rugged.

If you’re an accounting firm, for example, you likely want to project professionalism and reliability over playfulness. An adventure tour company, on the other hand, may want vibrant, exciting colors. Know who you are as a brand before picking any colors.

Understand Color Psychology

Different colors provoke psychological reactions. Red conveys excitement and passion, while blue evokes trust and security. Green represents naturalness and tranquility. Once you land on some personality traits you want to convey, do some research into what colors best reflect them.

You should also consider cultural interpretations of colors. White signals purity in western cultures but represents death in some Asian cultures. Do your homework to avoid any unintended associations.

Match Your Industry

Look at competitors and others in your field to guide your color choices. If you stray too far from industry-expected colors, you risk appearing outsider or rebellious when that’s not your intention.

For example, many financial brands use blues and greens because they’re associated with stability and money. Using a shocking bright orange could work against building customer trust.

Consider Color Trends

While you don’t want your brand to feel dated after just a couple of years, you also don’t want to totally ignore current trends. Using at least secondary colors aligned with current trends can help your brand feel fresh and modern.

Just don’t choose colors based solely on temporary popularity or you’ll have to go through an expensive rebrand when tastes inevitably change. Focus on color psychology over trends when picking primary brand colors.

Test with Your Audience

Your intuition may tell you that a color will appeal to your target audience. But it’s smart to validate this with actual target customers.

Show some mockups with your top color choices to people fitting your ideal customer profile. Ask which conveys the brand personality you described. The testing feedback should validate or cast doubt on your assumptions.

Picking the perfect brand colors takes research, cultural awareness, and testing. But it’s worth the effort to get it right from the beginning and have the colors work for your branding rather than against it. Consumers make subconscious judgments about brands within a split second. Make sure your color choices make the impression you want.