I think it's safe to say we can all think of a color and immediately associate it with some sort of feeling... maybe you see red and think of romance or anger, yellow might make you think of happiness, blue; melancholy or even serenity.
When it comes to your branding, it's important that your business not only speaks to your clients, but it also makes them feel something.
It's no secret that emotion is what can ultimately influence your customer into buying your product(s) and thus, emotional connections build strong brands.
So, where do you start building the connection between emotion and your brand? We suggest you start with your logo and more specifically, the color! There are many emotions that are brought about by specific colors. If we take a look at the color chart constructed by Brand Identity Specialist, Ray Vellest (image source) below, we can see that interestingly enough, there are at least 4-5 emotions, per color, that can influence your ultimate customer and whether or not they choose your company over competition.
Taking these emotion and color combinations into consideration, makes the process of choosing a bit easier. Take a second to put yourself in the shoes, eyes, and heart of your ideal customer and think about what they would feel when seeing your logo and brand for the first time.
Colors aren't only important when it comes to your logo but rather your branding as a whole. Think about your website and corresponding marketing collateral (brochures, business cards, flyers, postcards, etc.) - these items are also representations of your business and brand, are you using the right colors to communicate your intent?
Take a look at the chart below created by June Campbell, author of "The Psychology of Color Marketing" (image source) for some of the most commonly used colors and how you how you can use them in your branding to speak to your ideal consumers.
You can see here that warm colors (reds, yellows, oranges) should be used when you are wanting to grab attention, create urgency, or a call to action for your customers. Cool colors (blues, greens, purples) should be used when wanting to communicate trust, power, and confidence. Neutral colors (black, white, grey) should be used when you'd like to communicate simplicity, sophistication and/or authority.
One of our all-time favorite infographics is the one listed below (image source) which shows some of the most well-known brands and their color choices.
When choosing colors for our own logo for Peanut Butter Creative, you can see that we chose purple and orange. We did this intentionally in hopes of portraying our creativity and passion for the graphic design field.
Now that we've taken you through the entire rainbow, it may be time to think about your color choices and how they are are representing your brand! If you need any assistance in choosing the right color combination for a new or re-designed logo, we're your girls! More information about our logo package can be found here.
Happy Color Chasing!
Jenna