Color Me Creative

Colors can influence moods, affect decisions, and even cause physical reactions. We've put together a brief guide on how your brand's colors can be employed to elicit desired reactions.

Choosing the colors for your business is a crucial step when deciding which direction to taking your brand. Colors shape the perception of everything around us and directly attribute to the brain’s memory association. Choosing the right hue can be a daunting task, and it shouldn't be taken lightly. You have created a specific personality for your brand, and you need to make sure that your logo and marketing materials convey that personality to the public accurately. To do this, you need to make sure you select the perfect colors for your brand.

Red is a powerful, evocative, and lively color that demands attention. It’s often used for traffic lights, sales, and other instances that require high visibility. Red is also known to increase the appetite and for that reason, it is seen in a lot of restaurant branding. On the flip side, red can be seen as an aggressive and demanding. Brands like Rolling Stone magazine use bold, red lettering to distinctly announce their title as a dominant music icon. In all, the color red is primarily used to draw attention to something that should elicit an immediate response.

A calm, tranquil, and soothing color - blue brings about feelings of trust. Blue is also associated with logic, responsibility, communication, and efficiency, which is why it is attributed to maturity and adulthood. Many times, blue is used in offices to promote peace and help people focus. It is continually  chosen by the majority of the world as their favorite color. Occasionally, blue can also bring about a cold, isolated feeling when it is the dominant color.  In the world of business, IBM colors their acronym in blue to reflect the perception of assurance, intelligence, and protection you would want to see from a technology company holding valuable information. Blue is your color if you want to reinforce feelings of security and intellect.

Green is the color of the natural, growing world around us. As such, green is the relaxing and harmonious part of the color pallet. It brings a feeling of restoration and therefore is used to represent environmental products or awareness. The sense of growth that green provides may also be used to represent financial affluence and success. Nevertheless, it can also provoke feelings of boredom or sedation about the brand if used too heavily. Television channel Animal Planet uses a mixture of green shades in their logo to proudly exhibit their passion for the environment. Green brings with it the perception that the world is working and is best used when crafting a brand image of balance, health, and nature. 

Both yellow and orange rank highest for emotionally stirring colors. They are bright, warm, and stimulating to see - like a sunny day. Yellow and orange can each be used to motivate positively and create enthusiasm for your brand. Through long exposures, though, these bright, reflective colors can quickly become mentally draining to be around for. Anxiety can develop if too much of either color is used, which is why they are used in cautionary signage.

International furniture supplier, IKEA, uses the Swedish flag colors (blue and yellow) to represent their national roots but specifically employs the use of yellow in the logo to highlight their IKEA name. Employed in small, moderate amounts these colors will foster an emotionally supportive brand image without becoming too stressful to be around.

A Colorful Conclusion

With a seemingly endless array of colors and combinations, there will always be caveats to your choices. Nevertheless, one of the most exciting parts of branding is picking your colors. So make it fun but be informed of the appearance you are making! Luckily, with this short guide, you will able to navigate your selection process with ease. If this article brought a little colorful inspiration into your life, please like it and share it to spread the brightness!

Media Design & Marketing is an advertising agency focused on providing clients immediate results and long-term branding. We equip companies with the perfect mix of broadcast and digital advertising.

Sources:
Cover photo from @thecraftedlife.
http://www.898marketing.com/2016/06/08/colors-influence-on-marketing/
http://www.homestead.com/blog/07/2013/psychology-colors-marketing-infographic#.V2mc05MrKV4
http://www.colour-affects.co.uk/psychological-properties-of-colours