What do Your Brand Colors Say About You?

Ever wonder why you feel a certain way when looking at different colors? A lot of it has to do with color psychology. When you are at a bar, the warm yellow light invokes a calm setting perfect for polite drinking. Contrast that to the light setting in a club, the red, blue, and green gets you excited for the night.

Humans, visual creatures, perceive up to 80% of our impressions from sight. This means you’ll want to carefully consider your brand colors because they’re sending signals and cues to your potential clients that you may not even be aware of.

Here are some color options and their psychology for you to consider.

Yellow

People associate yellow with high energy, enthusiasm, and joy. Its aura gives consumers an optimistic feeling, and when people feel good, they will have a positive association with that particular brand.

However, too much of it gives an anxious/cautious feel. Think about the warning signs on the road. You’ll notice you subconsciously slow down every time you see the signs.

When considering the different shades of yellow, a bright yellow is excellent for clearing the mind. Golden yellow, more prone to criticism, symbolizes curiosity and a desire to investigate. A cream yellow encourages the creation of new ideas. Naturally, it is wise to add another color to neutralize it just a little.

Companies that use yellow well include Subway, Shell, and Mcdonald’s.

Red

The single most dynamic and passionate color. It symbolizes love, rage, passion, action, and courage; helping to excite emotions and motivate people to act. Depending on the other visual elements of your brand, it can portray friendliness and strength or come across as aggressive.

Many stores use red in their window displays because red is known to increase impulsivity and therefore sales.

Netflix and Coca-Cola are great examples of how to incorporate red into your brand.

Orange

Orange comes across as friendly, playful, adventurous, and optimistic. Making it a great option for companies looking to convey comfort and warmth.

Nickelodeon, Fanta, and Amazon show a great combination of colors alongside orange.

Blue

Blue is a color with multiple applications, and while it is often associated with sadness, for company brands it tends to reflect responsibility, authority, intelligence, and loyalty.

Research indicates that the color blue may help lower heart rate and even slow down metabolism, which leads to greater feelings of calm, peace, and serenity. Hence why it is a common color in spas, banks, and electronic companies. For example, Dell, I&M bank, Facebook

Green

Lighter tones of green tend to indicate growth, vitality, and renewal, while darker, more saturated greens tend to represent wealth and abundance. However, in some countries like South America, green signifies death while in Japan, it symbolizes high tech.

If you want your customers to think of restfulness, peace, and a balance of logic and emotion, consider green in your logo/ designs. Commonly used in eco-friendly products and brands like Animal planet.

Black

Black is a very serious color, traditionally representing both death and mystery. It also denotes authority and power, with a hint of seduction.

Due to its neutral nature, pairing it with bright colors or simply with white makes the design bold, or sophistically classic. For example, Apple, a combination of black and gray, well balanced.

Brown

Many organic and natural food and beauty products use brown because of its earthy connotations. As a designer, it’s important to balance this association with the earth, as brown often reminds people of dirt.

There are many shades of brown that express brand qualities such as durability and simplicity that can be an effective counter to busier, more superfluous designs.

So if you are looking to give out a feeling of being down to earth without being bland, play around with the shades and their complimentary colors.

White

White is the color of pure simplicity and purity. This color’s simplicity has been used extensively in minimalist design aesthetics.

When using white it’s important to be deliberate and balanced, using it only where appropriate.

Purple

Royalty, power, creativity, and luxury have historically been associated with purple. This is an ethereal color, often associated with magic and spirituality.

Interestingly enough, purple is the color most likely to cause our minds to wander, so you may want to couple it with another color in your logo/ design.

To get an idea of how purple can work for you, check out how we at Native Wave media used purple and pink on our logo and website.

Gray

Essentially a combination of black and white, it retains the reserved and formal qualities of both. Its muted appearance and ambiguity make it extremely versatile.

Since it is closely related to silver and most metals, it is closely associated with technology and industrial design.

Pink

Pink is a delicate color of innocence, and cuteness, and is traditionally associated with femininity. However, we are now gender-neutral in terms of colors and products like clothes. They are giving us more room to express ourselves.

Too much pink can come across as submissive and immature but can be coupled well with others to convey your message.

The colors mentioned above can be divided into 2 categories; warm tones and cool tones. Warm tones include; brown, pink red, orange, yellow, and combinations of these and similar colors. As the name indicates, the colors give off a cozy, sunshine, welcoming feeling.

As for cool tones, blue, green, and light purple give off a calming feeling. Unlike warm colors, cool colors look as though they recede.

You should understand how to use both categories of colors depending on the message you want to convey. If you need help choosing the color for your brand, check out the Canvas color Wheel.