Colours for branding: How to choose your brand colours
A colour palette is one of the major driving forces in a brand’s ability to be recognised. Think easyJet. You can see the brand in your mind’s eye, the font (Cooper Black) and that distinctive orange.
Bringing together a brand’s colour palette and applying them in a consistent way is one of the pillars of a strong identity. It is a big subject, here we touch on why they are important and what you might want to consider when putting a branding palette together.
We are not going to discuss colour theory, there are lots of books and articles about that and to be honest, most of it is instinctive. Green is calming, red is excitement or danger, yellow is fresh etc.
What we are going to discuss is how to define the need for a colour palette and how to go about defining the need when selecting an effective one.
As a general rule, any organisation has a key or lead colour. This usually comes from the logo or an element of the identity. These colours tend to be (but not always) a strong mid-to-dark tone. Think Deliveroo. Whilst you are thinking of Deliveroo, what colour comes to mind when you think of Uber?
Not all brands leverage a colour as part of their brand recognition and I would argue they are the weaker for it. Uber relies on its name for its recognition.
The key or main colour is the foundation of a brand's application. Not every page or slide in a PowerPoint presentation has the logo on it. But if designed well, you could be knee-deep in a presentation from easyJet and with the use of colour and font (note the lowercase ‘e’), you’d still know you are being bored to death by a presentation by easyJet.
Things get a little more complicated when an organisation needs a wider suite of colours because they have a broader set of applications.
You will see this in any number of style guides, typically along with the main colour, there will be a secondary palette and occasional guidance on how to apply the secondary palette.*
When selecting a secondary palette it is not enough to just choose a colour because it looks nice! The strongest uses of colour in a brand identity are ones that use less, not more, as our two examples above prove.
So if we have established the main colour, we now need to establish what need the organisation has for additional colours and where they sit on the spectrum.
We need an example, let’s make one up. The client is an online bank, targeted at UK students, we’ll call them ‘Froop’. Companies like this like names like this.
The identity consists of a symbol and type. The type is in navy blue to add a little stability and gravitas to what is a frivolous name. The symbol (whatever it is) is in teal**.
Teal is a very difficult colour to define, people see it in different ways, some as a blue, some as green and some not as teal at all. ‘That’s not teal, it’s duck egg blue’ the internet cries. Anyway, no matter how you see your teal, that’s what Froop has as part of its identity.
The website design brief for Froop dictates that the homepage consists of bands of content stacked on top of each other highlighting their services to students. Things like a ‘larger tracker’ or ‘sushi monitor’. All of these are vital tools for students.
The interior design brief details the main office area, break-out rooms, pool tables and bean bags etc.
On top of this are the e-comms, cards and digital publications (annual reports etc). It is easy to see that a single or even two-colour palette will not suffice for Froop, they will need more colours in their palette to deliver an engaging user experience for their customers and staff.
Imagine an office in only bright teal and navy, it would be headache-inducing.
Before suggesting or selecting a secondary colour palette, you must review the entire scope of the organisation's needs, from the business card to the headquarters.
Once that has been established, the goal is to deliver as few colours as possible and without undermining the key colour of your brand.
Froop needs some more calming colours, lighter colours, maybe just a light taupe (argue about that one) and possibly a warm grey. If they agree, and they should, by adding two colours to the palette we have expanded the identity and its application without any detriment to the key colours and brand recognition Froop enjoys.
Colour is a big subject. This article is one of many more to come.
*Resist, at all costs, using colour to denote an activity, department or subject. Your users and customers will not recognise this as signposting.
**The name teal comes from the bird.