Brand Colors – Definition and Meaning of Each Color

Brand colors are one of the key elements of the face of a brand. The colors of the brands are used for making a favorable impression in the hearts and minds of the target audiences. When a business, company, or website chooses its brand colors, they use it for effective branding purposes to influence their users to remember them.

Right brand colors are crucial for making a business or organization be a memorable brand. Use of the brand colors as primary colors in the logo, visual marketing materials, social media promotions, staff uniforms, etc acts as the face of the brand.

What are Brand Colors?

Brand Colors make up the logo and other visual elements of a brand. A brand can be made memorable through brand colors as the colors can influence consumers’ minds to a great extent.

Brand colors contribute largely to establishing brand recognition and positioning in the mind of consumers. Colors possess the power to influence consumer psychology and elicit different emotions. People tend to remember the colors present in the logos and associate them with the brands.

Researches state that 60 -80 % of consumers’ decisions to buy a product get influenced by the Color of the product. Each Color conveys a separate meaning and influences the mind of consumers in separate ways.

Psychology of Colors – What does Each Brand Color Mean?

1. Red Brand Color Means

Grabs the attention quickly. And it is the Color of love, passion, and also aggression. It elicits responses like energetic, passionate, and provocative.

2. Black Brand Color Means

Generally used for luxury brands, it establishes a classy and sophisticated feeling.

3. Blue Brand Color Means

Blue imparts the feeling of trust, security, and confidence. Hence it is the most popular choice of brands. Researches state that 33% of the world’s top brands use blue in their logos.

4. Purple Brand Color Means

Purple is often associated with royalty and elegance and often gives off a mysterious feeling.

5. Green Brand Color Means

Green brings about a soothing and calming feeling. It establishes a unique identity and is associated with safety and peace.

6. Yellow Brand Color Means

One can relate yellow with the Color of the sun and makes one hopeful and optimistic. Yellow is associated with creativity, happiness,s and warmth.

7. Orange Brand Color Means

is a combined form of red and yellow; hence, it can be associated with both passion and optimism. It can elicit both the feelings like aggression and happiness.

8. Brown Brand Color Means

Brown is all about imparting an earthly, simplistic feeling. Brown provides a comforting and natural ambiance.

9. White Brand Color Means

White is more used in healthcare businesses as white is associated with purity, simplicity, and cleanliness.

Through research, it is found that Red, Blue, and Black are the most popular choices among brands. Researches show that 29% of the brands use red for their brand logo, while 28% use black or grey-scale.

Choosing A Suitable Color for Brand Identity

From this array of colors, people need to select the one that suits their brands. To choose a suitable color, one needs to follow some basic steps, like –

1. Know The Brand Values and Traits

Colors represent the values and traits of a brand. While selecting colors for brands, people need to know the values they are trying to convey through colors.

Colors can convey a great deal about a brand. Colors to be used should be chosen, depending on the core values and traits of a brand, like whether one wants to impart a simple, bold, or lighthearted feeling.

2. Select a Color

Once the value and personality are established, it becomes easier for brands to decide on a Color. One may also derive inspiration or ideas from similar brands operating in the market.

To elicit the desired responses, keep Color psychology in mind while deciding on a Color.

3. Plan Out The Color Scheme

Take a step towards establishing a Color scheme by selecting a core Color. Core Color is associated with brand identity. Core Color is the dominant Color in the logo and many other visual elements of the brand.

Core Color can do most of the work alone, but it would still require one or two variations.

Most brands prefer using analogous Colors or Colors similar to core Colors for creating variation. Though, variations can also be brought in by using a contrasting secondary Color along with core Colors.

4. Use a Color Palette Generator for Brand Palette

The last step is to generate a color palette by using any Color palette generator tool. Color palette generator tools would help one create the variations of core Color or find out a contrasting secondary Color.

The color palette generator enables one to find a suitable contrasting Color that would complement the core Color. Generate a color palette that would help the designer design the logo and other brand visual elements. Right colors tend to optimize the presence of your brand.

These tools can let you chose one or two brand colors or more by helping you decide the right color combinations to create a brand as per the target audience and primary brand objectives. Right color schemes and color palettes for management, advertising, product, tech companies, etc empower them to project themselves as a strong brand. Some of the tools that can help you in the process are-

  • Visme
  • TailorBrands
  • InVision
  • RelayThat, etc.

Brand Colors of Top Brand

1. Coca Cola

When it comes to red as a brand color, the first name that pops up in the mind is Coca-Cola. Plus, it also has the adept use of red, black, and white brand color combinations. Many brands have used this combination but Coca-Cola is the pioneer here. Even its red is known as Coca-Cola red while its black is not the regular dark black, but it is a little lesser than the black.

2. Netflix

Netflix is the next brand that is extremely popular with its red brand color. It has red color at the head of its brand color palette, plus the supporting color here is black. Its color combination is also known as Netflix Red and black.

3. LinkedIn

The color of the LinkedIn brand is blue. You may also notice in their current guideline that suggests that the use of a color palette where blue is used to complement other colors to showcase trust, confidence, and security.

Conclusion

Colors play a significant role in establishing brand recognition. Possessing a good understanding of Color psychology is necessary for developing a brand Color palette.

Suitable brand Colors can prove beneficial for brands, while unsuitable ones can be the reason for the downfall of a brand.

What are your favorite brands whose colors you can recognize straight away?

How effective do you find brand colors in connecting and converting target customers?