Choosing the proper logo colors involves much more than just picking your favorite colors, as your color scheme plays a crucial role in defining your brand’s identity. Colors can affect our behavior and decision-making because they have a variety of meanings and can express a wide range of emotions and notions.
Choosing your brand’s color palette may seem like a difficult process with such a wide range of colors available. Many brands struggle with selecting the right color scheme for their logo. Even the biggest brands in the world have gone through this tedious process, so rest assured you are not alone here.
This article will show you how to choose the best color scheme for your brand and how to comprehend the differences between each color. So if you want to select the right color scheme for your business logo, then this is the article for you.
The following are some steps that you must take in order to choose the right color for your business logo:
Identify the Number of Colors your Brand Should use:
Did you know that according to a study, consumers subconsciously evaluate a product in under 90 seconds, with up to 90% of their evaluation being based solely on color?
Color may also boost brand identification by 80%. Your brand colors offer a direct route to the hearts of your target audience if you want to foster a strong emotional bond with your customers.
You should first decide on how many colors you need to use to define your brand. When studying some of the most well-known brand color schemes in the world, it becomes clear that many of these palettes contain three essential components:
Base Shade
This color is the most dominant color of the brand. Therefore, it should appeal to your main target audience while embodying your most significant brand personality features.
Accent Hue
Following the base color, the accent color is the second most important brand color. It must complement your base color and be eye-catching to your target audience in addition to conveying other aspects of your brand.
Neutral Hue
This refers to a color that blends subtly into your color scheme without drawing too much notice to itself. Consider hues that you would generally use for the background, such as various tones of white, beige, or grey.
To learn how to develop a successful brand color scheme, let’s peek at Dunkin’ Donuts’ brand color palette.
Orange is the brand’s primary hue, which evokes happiness, enthusiasm, and pleasure. Bold magenta, which is energetic and whimsical, serves as the accent color.
Together, these hues stand for the brand’s vibrantly sprinkled donuts and upbeat character. Its main neutral tone, chocolate brown, reflects the brand’s sweet and homey essence while balancing off the two stronger hues.
Search for Complementary Colors using the Color Wheel
You’re going to get into a lot of concepts related to color theory and design when you go about developing a brand color palette. The color wheel, a diagram that shows the connections between fundamental colors and other hues, is a key idea to comprehend.
Foundations for a Color Wheel
The discovery that clean white light is made up of seven visible hues, also known as the colors of the rainbow, by English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton in 1666 provides the basis for the color wheel. The color wheel’s fundamental features include:
Primary Colors
Red, yellow, and blue are the three primary colors. These hues cannot be blended with other hues.
Secondary Colors
Secondary colors like purple, orange, and green. When primary colors are combined, these colors are produced.
Tertiary Colors
Tertiary colors, like aqua or violet, are created by combining primary and secondary hues.
The two different color temperatures can alternatively be represented by dividing the color wheel in half:
Purple, green, and blue are examples of cool hues. These are related to calm, peaceful emotions as well as cooler seasons like winter and spring.
Reds, oranges, and yellows are examples of warm hues. These are connected to feelings of vigor, activity, and action as well as warmer seasons like summer and fall.
We can also identify three important color schemes by consulting the color wheel:
Two colors that contrast one another are referred to as complementary colors.
Three colors that are right adjacent to one another are referred to be analogous colors.
Triadic colors are three hues that are positioned three times each on the color wheel.
Three hues that are uniformly spaced apart on the color wheel are referred to as triadic colors.
Recognize the Relationship between Brand Personality and Color Scheme
You are prepared to begin considering the colors for your brand now that you have some basic understanding of color theory.
Insights from the Journal of Consumer Research indicate that consumers appreciate companies that “fit” well into their lifestyles and that their preferred brands frequently become an integral part of their identities. One technique that marketers can use to communicate the essence of their brand and its goal is color.
For instance, a business with a playful brand identity can go for a lively and energizing color scheme like pink and yellow. On the other hand, colors like blue and grey should be used to convey a more formal and mature brand identity.
Consider Culture When Choosing Colors
Color connections and preferences are strongly influenced by culture. White, for instance, is linked to happiness and cleanliness in Western nations but death in many Asian nations. Make sure your brand colors don’t have any bad associations in the nations where your target audience is based by conducting research in advance.
Based on your Industry, Determine the Optimal Brand Colors
Did you know that some hues are better suited to particular industries because of the meaningful thoughts and feelings they convey? Choosing your trademark colors requires a thorough understanding of your industry.
Red
The culinary, technology, automobile, and agriculture industries frequently choose red. Famous brands that use the color red in their logos and brand palettes include Ferrari, Nintendo, and Kellogg’s.
Orange
Orange is a well-liked brand color among businesses in the technology and healthcare industries. Firefox, Amazon, and GSK Consumer Healthcare are only three examples of brands in various industries that use orange as their corporate hue.
Yellow
When choosing a hue, firms that sell energy, food, or home items frequently use yellow. Three well-known brands that make use of yellow in their color schemes are Shell, IKEA, and McDonald’s.
Green
In the energy, banking, food, household, and technology sectors, green is a popular brand hue. Green is a prominent hue used by three well-known businesses, including BP, Starbucks, and Android.
Blue
One of the most used hues in brand color schemes is blue, especially for industries like energy, banking, aviation, technology, healthcare, and agriculture. These include Twitter and NASA, to name just two.
Purple
The banking, technology, and healthcare industries are all big fans of purple. Yahoo! is a good example of a brand that includes purple as one of its colors.
Pink
Within the technology, cosmetics, health, toy, and food-related industries, pink is a dominating brand hue. To name two companies, Taco Bell and Victoria’s Secret, use pink.
Black
Businesses in the fashion, technology, and car industries frequently use black as one of their brand colors. Mercedes, Sony, and Nike are a few examples.
White
White can be a dominant brand color, even though it is a neutral color. This is especially true for fashion and healthcare firms. Examples include Adidas, Chanel, etc.
Be Educated on your Brand’s Distinct Color Codes
Because color plays such a significant role in your branding, you should make sure that your selected color scheme is maintained across desktop, mobile, and print. You can achieve this by being familiar with the PMS, CMYK, RGB, and HEX color codes for each of your brand’s colors.
PMS (Pantone Matching System): Proprietary Standardized color inks produced by the Pantone Corporation under the name PMS.
CMYK: A printing method known as CMYK uses a combination of tiny transparent dots in the colors cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.
RGB: Red, green, and blue color combinations are used in RGB to display colors on a screen. Only digital applications use RGB.
HEX (hexadecimal color): A six-digit number and letter combination known as HEX (hexadecimal color) is produced by balancing the ratios of red, green, and blue (RGB)
Conclusion
It should be abundantly clear at this point just how important a color scheme is for your business logo, as well as how to choose the right color scheme to represent it fully. To get the best logo design with the appropriate color scheme, I highly recommend you hire professional business logo design services to create a logo best suited for your business. There is a plethora of such businesses out there waiting for you to hire them.
