Color Psychology in Brand Identity and Personality
Color is a beautiful and immediate way to create a feeling both for yourself and for someone else. Knowing (and breaking) the rules of color can be really fun, but it’s also possible to go too far. Effective brand color personalities will have a bit of a flair, roots in the science of how color works, and ultimately be adaptable for both a print and digital world.
Choosing a brand color palette is a difficult thing, and we always suggest working with professional designers to do so, but this guide will get you looking in the right direction and eliminating bad fits.
The Basics of the Color Wheel
Adobe Color Wheel
Play with colors here!
The Color Wheel is the basis of how we understand colors, shades, tones, and how they interact with one another. The color wheel isn’t just thrown together; it’s based on how white light divides when the light itself is bent. You might be familiar with the result of this phenomenon: the rainbow.
The color wheel is divided into your fundamental colors (remember ROYGBIV?), but each of those colors blends into the ones around it. There are, quite literally, thousands of colors in the actual rainbow, but the human eye can only perceive so many. The Color Wheel helps us get close by providing a structure for seeing the relationships between colors across the wheel.
The Difference Between Warm & Cool Colors
Think of temperature to remember which colors (and tones) are warm and which are cool. When something is on fire, we think of red, orange, and yellow. When something is freezing, we think of blues and purples. Outside of these generalizations, each color can be tweaked ever so slightly to be warmer or cooler.
Psychologically, our brains associate warmer colors with things like energy, passion, and aggression. Cool colors are associated with feelings of calm, trust, and reliability. These associations have been proven, time and time again, to have a substantial effect on the way we think and feel. Color can even affect the way we act. One study showed that warm-colored placebo pills were more often reported to be effective than cool-colored pills; placebo pills — pills that, by definition, are ineffective. Color has that much power.
Because color has that much power, taking the time to think through your brand’s color palette is vital. Professional designers will guide you on the right, wrong, unique, and effective ways to use color in your brand, but familiarizing yourself with how color works will serve the conversation when working with a professional design studio.
The colors you use will affect your clients and readers, whether they realize it or not. Color is a language, and you need to know what you’re trying to say to choose the right colors. So, what are you trying to say? What feel are you going for? What’s your color personality? We’ve compiled a list of different personalities to give you some direction. From here, you can adjust (or mix one or two) different personalities to uncover a color palette that’s perfect for you and your brand.
The Soft Color Personality
The soft personality will use colors closer to the white center of the color wheel. Skin tones are often considered soft so using nudes, blushes, warm and rich browns will also evoke a sense of comfort. The softer color personalities will tend to have more muted tones and less punchy or vibrant colors.
The Strong Color Personality
The strong personality will include rich, dark colors and metal tones. Blacks, browns, blues, and silver all on the cooler side of the color wheel will evoke a strong feeling. These color personality types should be rooted and grounded to feel sturdy and controlled.
The Organic Color Personality
The organic personality will often be associated with the earth so using greens and plant-inspired colors will be the way to go here. Green is associated with life, earth, nature, and vitality. Browns and yellows can be wonderfully complementary in an organic color personality.
The Modern Color Personality
The modern color personality looks much like a lighter version of the masculine personality: greys, whites, creams, and metal tones. To warm up the light metals and naturals, you could add in woody tones. To add flair and create a punch, you can add a vibrant color of warm or cool leaning — just make it pop.
The Fierce Color Personality
The fierce color personality will evoke fire, speed, and passion. Colors like red, black, fuschia, and colors in the neon range will work well to portray those feelings. Red colors are arousing and increase heart rates. Red gets your attention. Black, too, is associated with power, authority, and strength.
The Trustworthy Personality
The trustworthy personality will feel level-headed, calm, and steady. Blues in all different tones work well for this personality. Blues can be feminine and dramatic. It’s also been shown that people are more productive in blue rooms, and, if you are wearing blue, others may perceive you to be more reliable.
The Formal Personality
The formal personality type will rest on jewel and royal tones like navy, purple, crimson, and emerald paired with beautiful black tones. Anything that gives an ode to royalty would be an effective formal personality. But, be careful, formal color palettes can become stuffy if not carefully crafted.
The Relaxed Personality
A relaxed color palette can go one of two ways: it can be largely made up of neutrals, as neutrals are less taxing on the eyes, or it can be made up of calming colors like blues and greens. Light browns and beiges can have the same effect. For a relaxed color palette, it’s a good idea to limit your palette to one or two colors.
Defining Your Own Color Personality
Now that you've read up on the basic color personalities, you can develop your own. Start by listing some words you feel describe your brand. Write down as many as you can. Then edit, edit, and edit until the list is only two words.
From there, pick a primary and secondary word. This will help you later on as you define the primary and secondary (or supporting) colors in your palette. For instance, you may have a primary word as Sophisticated but a secondary word of Humorous. We have a tried-and-true method for defining brand color palettes.
The Five-Color Method
Have you ever gone to a website and been so overwhelmed by the number of colors that you immediately clicked the back button? Too many colors can overwhelm a viewer, and if you're looking to gain customers, overwhelming them is the last thing you want to do. So, here's the best way to avoid it: limit your color palette to five colors. It can be tempting to use more than that, but for a singular brand without extensive product lines, you really only need five colors, and that's at the high end.
Pick a primary brand color. This color should best represent the primary word you selected.
Pick another primary brand color. This color should best represent the secondary (supporting) word you selected.
Pick an accent color. Your accent color should complement your primary colors and fill out the visual range of the palette.
Pick an accent color. Your accent color should complement your primary colors and fill out the visual range of the palette.
Pick a versatile neutral color. Your neutral color should work seamlessly on print and digital and be an alternative to a basic white.
It helps to work with tools like Cooler.co or Adobe Color. Tools like this can help you decide what color families look good together.
This is a great starting point in discovering how you want your brand to be visually represented by a range of colors. However, deploying those colors effectively in both the digital and print spaces requires working with a professional design studio. Your partner brand agency will help you evolve and tweak your palette to be most effective for your audience. Trust in the process and in the evolution.
