Brand COLOUR strategy

Have you heard the words branding and brand colors be thrown around recently? Have you considered trying that out for yourself or maybe rethinking your original colors? If yes, then give this a read, hopefully by the end of it I would have convinced you that having a strong Brand color strategy is the basis of good branding.

The brand’s colors can convey so much about a brand or business or even about you as an individual. The psychology of color can help your business establish trust and familiarity by eliciting the right emotions. It’s no surprise that the most popular brands in the world have a strong association with their logos. For example the color palette for the sincerestoryteller was based on 2 strong emotions warmth and light. That was our starting point. For me personally as a photographer natural light is the most essential element and all shades of caramel just make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Of course, there are always exceptions to every rule, with several potential factors affecting an individual’s perception of color. For example the color RED might symbolize love for you, but for another person it might mean danger.
Put simply, whilst there is no cast-iron guarantee that using specific coloration will assist you in achieving success with your brand strategy, there are certainly strong parallels between color and brand perception across product sectors and the fact that they look so amazingly cohesive and elegant when used correctly is just an added incentive.

So let’s get started,
Let us assume that you have decided to go ahead and try your hand at brand colors, but are not sure how to get started with creating a color palette that speaks to your brand. In this post, I have tried to break down the process and help you narrow down your colors :

How to begin?

For starters choose 3 to 5 core colours and stick to this throughout your branding. You want to make sure you have at least 2 base colours to balance your colour palette (black, white or cream) are good to have in your brand palette, they are versatile colours and will match your palette no matter what shades you choose.

This next step is crucial for you to determine the core colours.

What do the specific colors stand for?

My advice to you would be to do some research on ‘The Color Wheel’ to give you an idea of contrasting colors and their importance and ‘Brand Color Psychology’ to help give you a better understanding of why colors play an important role in branding and assist you to decide which color describes your individuality and brand aesthetic the best.

Red is associated with danger, excitement, and energy. It’s also known for being the colour of love and passion.

Pink is feminine, it’s sentimental and romantic. Different shades, like hot pink, can be youthful and bold.

Orange, like its namesake, is fresh and full of vitality. It’s also creative, adventurous, and associated with being cost-effective.

Yellow is optimistic. It’s a colour associated with being playful and happy.

Green is natural, often used to demonstrate sustainability. But it can also align with prestige and wealth.

Blue is trustworthy and reliable. It’s calming or often associated with depression.

Purple is royalty and majesty. It can be spiritual and mysterious.

Brown is down-to-earth and honest, often used for organic wholesome products.

White is pure. It conveys simplicity and innocence, often with a minimalistic feel.

Black is both sophisticated and elegant. It can be formal and luxurious, but also sorrowful.

These are just the broader color families, to help you narrow down the core colors. Like orange has fiery orange and the more dusty rust orange. Green has olive and sage green, so on and so forth.

Now after this big saga I am sure you are wondering, do I just pick 3 out of the above colors and I am good to go. I wish it were that simple but unfortunately it isn’t. We have to dig a little deeper. These are just the broader color families, to help you narrow down the core colors. Like orange has fiery orange and the more dusty rust orange. Green has olive and sage green, so on and so forth. So for example sake, let us consider that the brand in question is SINCERESTORYTELLER. If you have been following us for any amount of time or even have just clicked on the link you know the minute you see the feed that the colours are cream, rust, earthy brown, sage green and ash Grey. Yes! They sound very fancy-shmancy and yes they look pretty darn great (if I may say so myself) but I want to help you understand how we got where we are.

How to go about creating your own brand color palette?

There are quite a few tools you can use at your disposal when creating your brand. If you’re a bit lost on what colors you would like, a great tool to use is your images themselves to help you decide.

Fortunately for us there are so many tools we can use, one of the most popular ways is using an app like Adobe Colors CC to extract colors from an image. Have fun and play around with color combinations that you like.
Adobe Color CC then gives you the hex codes you can simply save and upload into Canva to create your own brand kit, exclusively in Canva itself. This way you always have the exact codes easy to use when creating graphics or updating your website color palette. Yes the above steps are a little complicated and yes they require some effort and learning. Which brings me to the last option, you can just compile the images and photos that speak to you and describe your brand the best and consult someone with the technical know how to do it for you aka ME.
I hope you found these tips helpful in creating a color palette for your brand or at least get you started in that direction. Remember to have fun and BE YOU. because nothing sparkles like authenticity.