It is hard to choose branding colours for your business as there are so many to choose from. Your colour palette is a powerful tool to express your brand personality, connect with your target audience, and build trust. This is a guide that will help you determine how much colour you require and provide you with tips on how to create a palette that suits your business.

Understanding Brand Colours

What is the use of colours in branding?

Colours are evocative, shape people’s perceptions, and even determine purchases. Consider the following:

• Blue conveys trust and professionalism, commonly utilised by such banks as Chase and Barclays.
• Red conveys excitement and urgency, typically used in such brands as Target and Red Bull.
• Green conveys growth, stability, or environmental friendliness, best for sustainable brands.
  

From our experience of working with UK clients, using the same colours on your site, social media, and packaging makes it simple for people to identify and recall your brand. Colours do tell your brand’s story instantly.

How Do Colour Palettes Convey Your Brand Identity?

Your colour scheme is used to do more than embellish your company. It represents your company’s personality, be it playful, calming, or energetic. If your colours work together well, your logo, web design, and packaging all appear to be one cohesive unit.

The Ideal Number of Primary Colours

How many colours is a business best suited with?

Successful businesses use one or two primary colours so that the business can become consistent and recognisable.

• Airbnb: Primary red, secondaries muted greys and accent colours.
• Coca-Cola: Primary red, very little secondaries.
  

A simple colour scheme makes your brand look tidy and easy to remember.

How Do Colour Palettes Convey Your Brand Identity?

With just one or two bold colours:

• Makes it more memorable: Customers easily associate the colours with your brand.
• Ensures visual identity: Your site, social posts, and everything look the same.
• Simplifies design decisions: Fewer colours reduce the chances of inconsistency across marketing materials.
  

Adding Secondary colours

When do you include secondary colours in your palette?

Once you’ve determined your primary colours, include secondary colours to increase versatility.

• Highlight calls-to-action or primary messaging.
• Accompany your primary palette, but do not overwhelm it.
• Use secondary colours sparingly. Adding two to four extra colours is often best. Try to choose neutral hues or tones that harmonise with your dominant colours.
  

Secondary colours can:

• Emphasise your dominant colour’s emotional appeal.
• Provide visual hierarchy for websites or brochures.
• Create contrast without compromising brand recognition.
  

For instance, a calming blue as a dominant colour for a brand would utilise soft yellows or dull oranges to emphasise salient sections.

Colour Psychology and Brand Perception

How is colour psychology taken into account when determining brand colours?

Colour psychology attributes emotions and behaviours to some colours.

Examples:

• Red: passion, excitement, urgency
• Orange: creativity, energy
• Yellow: optimism, friendliness
• Green: stability, growth, nature
• Blue: trust, calm, professionalism
  

When your colours represent your brand values, your audience will identify with you. Brands that select their colours thoughtfully tend to be more memorable.

Is your brand palette to have warm, cool, or mixed tones?

• Warm tones (reds, oranges, yellows): Vibrant, welcoming, playful
• Cool tones (blues, greens, purples): Soothing, professional, dependable
• Mixed tones: Versatile but must be carefully balanced so as not to cause visual chaos
  

Tip: Start with the mood you want to generate and then select the corresponding primary colour.

Creating a Harmonious Brand Colour Palette

How do you create a harmonious colour palette across all touchpoints of the brand?

• Select a base colour: Your best brand personality.
• Add one accent colour: Complementary or similar to the base.
• Choose the neutrals: Background or supporting colours like Consistency is key. 

Make sure all material, whether your website or business cards, uses the same colour codes like RGB, CMYK, or PMS.ct RGB, CMYK, or PMS values.

How Are Dominant and Accent Colours Used Collectively in Branding?

• Dominant colour: Represents the soul of your brand identity.
• Accent colour: Adds emphasis, highlights, or visual stimulation.
  

Example: Best Buy uses blue as dominant and yellow as accent, instantly recognisable.

Global and Cultural Considerations

How Do Global and Cultural Colour Meanings Influence Your Decisions?

Colours carry different meanings in various cultures:

• Green: Envy in Britain, prosperity elsewhere
• Yellow: Envy in France/Germany, happiness in America
• Red: Luck in China, warning in Western contexts
  

If you’re a UK startup looking to reach customers in other countries, make sure your colour choices make sense everywhere and won’t be misunderstood.

Testing and Refining Your Colour Choices

How can testing different colour combinations improve your palette decisions?

• Create digital mockups for websites, social media, and print materials.
• Conduct audience surveys or focus groups.
• Compare with competitor palettes to ensure distinctiveness.
  

By trying and tweaking your colours, you are guaranteed that your palette meets your brand and audience.

Can you use Colour families or styles instead of specific colours to be versatile?

Yes. Try:

• Pastels
• Neons
• Various shades of one colour
• Colours that neighbour each other on the colour wheel
  

This way, you are able to become creative with your colours while keeping your brand cohesive-looking.

Conclusion

Choosing your brand colour scheme doesn’t have to be tough. Start with a single or double dominant colour, and add a handful of secondary colours, think about how colours can create moods and what they mean throughout the world, and make it consistent, experiment, and use contrast to bring out key details.

Want to bestow your brand with that extra oomph? Call One Digital Creations Branding Services, and we will help you design a colour scheme that is just the way you desire your business to be.