Anatomy of a Brand Palette
There is an art to creating the perfect brand colour palette. Read further to understand the anatomy of a great brand colour palette.
Start by asking yourself this question:
If you had to describe your brand in three words what would they be?
Is your brand timeless, energetic, romantic, calming, relaxed, upbeat, playful, serious, sophisticated?
Choosing the right colours can evoke these adjectives in the mind. For example, a romantic brand may choose dark reds, a calming brand may choose light blues, an energetic brand may choose oranges. Having a basic understanding of colour theory can be very helpful when picking out a color palette for your brand. Don’t know what I mean by colour theory, read this post!
Tips for picking your brand colour palette:
Timeless over Trendy
It is inevitable that you will need to update your brand’s palette throughout the years. But it is important to choose colours that will remain timeless instead of colors that are currently trendy should your brand not require trendy vibes .
Choosing timeless colours results in fewer updates to stay current. This leads to stronger brand recognition. Brand recognition helps consumers easily identify your product or brand and builds trust and awareness.
Stay Relevant
It’s important to pick colours that are relevant to your brand’s values, mission, and industry. Your brand colours should be a unique reflection of your business and your services. If you are an event planner that focuses on creating upbeat, celebratory, and fun experiences your brand colours probably shouldn’t be muted, earthy, or dark. They should be bright and colourful so they are relevant to your brand’s mission.
Stay True To Yourself
While your brand should appeal to your audience it is also a direct reflection of you. It’s important that your brand colors are something that you love and can live with.
Creating your brand colour palette
There is a formula for creating a great colour palette. Your brand colour palette should be around 5 colours. This allows you to have plenty of colours for any situation while still maintaining consistency and brand recognition.
2 Main Colours
Choose one main bold colour and then a colour that compliments it. These will be your two main brand colours that will create brand recognition.
Bold Colour – Pick a bold colour that you love and that represents your brand’s mission (think back to those three adjectives you thought of that describes your brand). This colour will be used for grabbing attention, highlighting important information, and are used for calls to action. This colour should be memorable so should be picked first.
Complimentary Colour– Next, pick a colour that contrasts and compliments the bold colour. It can be useful to use the colour wheel for picking a complementary colour. I like to use Adobe Color.
2-3 Neutral Colours
Accent Neutral – Next pick a neutral shade that pairs well with your bold and complimentary colour. This will help ground your colours and can be used as an accent colour.
1 Dark Neutral – Pick a dark neutral colour that aligns with the rest of your colour scheme. This colour will be used mostly for paragraph text.
1 Light Neutral – Pick a light neutral colour. This colour will be used for background and supporting elements. This colour will not take the limelight and will be used to add depth to the brand palette.
Narrowing down and refining your brand colour palette so that is aligns with your brand’s adjectives and values can be a daunting task but I can’t stress how important it is. Having a strong brand colour palette plays such an important role in your brand’s recognition.
