In my previous blog, “Discover Your True Voice”, I suggested ways organizations and ministries could pinpoint their brand’s authentic voice. As a bookend to that blog, I wanted to address two easy ways to define and develop your brand’s color palette. While it seems simple enough, your color choice can make or break your audience’s perception of you and your mission.
Often, the most difficult thing for humans is getting started. Working with a blank slate can heap anxiety and undue pressure on you when you are trying to “get it just right,” especially when there are millions of color choices available!
So, what do you do when you want a memorable brand, but are puzzled about where to begin?
1. Limit your choices.
Successful brands reside in our memory for many reasons. Chief among them are the colors they use. Think of the first major brands that come to mind (e.g. McDonald’s, Costco, Apple, FedEx). What do they share in common? They only utilize one or two colors in their logo! What these brands achieve through color is valuable real estate in our memory. It also allows us to associate those particular colors with the brand and what they represent.
Your goal should be the same. The right color(s) to accurately represent your brand can be found by asking simple questions about how you want to be viewed by your audience. What are you trying to communicate? Make a list of key words that best describe your brand, and match colors based on those words. Color psychology suggests that colors can impact behavior. For example:
Our brand is: healing, inspiring, hopeful
Suggested color(s): Blue (trustworthy); green (soothing, cheerful)
Remember, color perception can also be very subjective, having multiple meanings with each person. But there are some colors, such as red, orange, and yellow, which convey a universal meaning ranging from warmth to comfort, or from anger to fear.
I suggest starting with a color palette generator, such as Coolors or Colormind, where you can generate color combinations in one click, and you can also apply them to your digital assets, like your website!
2. Make your “call to action” stick.
It is vitally important to remember that your color choices have great power and can motivate your audience to interact and follow through with you. Now that you have your one or two brand colors—which you can use in everything you do to market your organization or ministry—you can now select your accent color, which will be used for any elements you use to move your audience to action.
This color, sometimes called a conversion color because of the way it helps draw attention to a point of action, should be distinct from your primary color(s). It should not be the same as your brand colors and should be highly noticeable. Orange, red, blue, and green are frequently used because they are easily noticed, particularly when pitted against colors that are opposite them on the color wheel (complementary colors).
You have many tools at your disposal, and do not discount your intuition. Taking time to examine colors within the context of your brand can actually be relaxing and enjoyable, particularly when you see them come together and put to proper use. Get to it!
If developing your brand is more frustration than fun, let us help you discover your true colors!
CLICK HERE or call Infinity Concepts today at 724-733-1200.
- Discover Your True Colors in Two Easy Steps - December 11, 2020
- Discover Your True Voice - October 30, 2020
- 3 Things You May Not Know About Graphic Design - September 4, 2020
