An Intro to Color Theory for Brands

Color is a visual way to showcase the brand’s emotion and values. If done right, it’s a vehicle to communicate with your audience. Whether you want your audience to feel calm or energized—color is going to play a major role in getting that emotion across. Color also plays a crucial role in getting your audience to take action, such as clicking a button on your website or picking up your product on a shelf at a local boutique. 

That’s why many designers, like myself, spend time and energy on selecting purposeful colors when we work 1:1 with a brand. Today, I’m sharing an introduction to color theory, but keep in mind that these colors can exude different emotions based off of the hue, shade or saturation of the color.

Red

Red is typically known for power, love, passion and boldness. You’ll also find red used to portray extremes, heat, activeness and danger, so keep this in mind when using red. It’s also a popular color for larger brands and businesses, especially within the food industry, as there is a bit of research that leads people to think that red evokes hunger cues.

Brands that wear red well: Target, Pinterest, Netflix

Orange

If you’re leaning towards orange, you’re probably hoping to strike a chord of creativity, curiosity, energetic, vibrancy and optimism. It can be a tough color to pull off, but when done right, it really sets brands apart from others. 

Brands that wear orange well: OrangeTheory Fitness, Hermès, Suntegrity

Yellow

Yellow helps portray the emotions of cheerful, joyful, possibility and creativity. It’s easily interchangeable with happiness, sunshine and is a great pick-me-up color. Keep in mind that yellow can be a tricky color to have in your palette though, as depending on the usage it can be tricky to read.

Brands that wear yellow well: Dry Bar, Topo Chico, Citrine Beauty

Green

If you’re looking to portray growth, freshness, health or nature, then green is a great color to add to your line up. You’ll often see green being used by organic and health minded businesses, just make sure you’re not allowing the color to become part of a bigger concern of ‘green-washing.’

Brands that wear green well: One Medical, Tata Harper, Follain Beauty

Blue

Blue is typically known for calming, peace, healing and trustworthiness. Depending on how it’s used within a brand, it can also give off more of an integrity, productivity or tech vibe. There are so many shades and hues to choose from, all which will help determine how this color will be perceived by the consumer.

Brands that wear blue well: Tiffany, Indie Lee, VW

Purple

Purple can be a bit harder to “pull off” as a primary coIor within a brand. Depending on its use case it can represent royal/luxury, ambition, integrity, intuition and curiosity. 

Brands that wear purple well: Hallmark, BYBI Beauty, Roku

Pink

If you’re looking to portray affection, gentleness, compassion, femininity and sweetness, pink might be a great addition to your color palette line up. There are so many shades of pink to consider, but one of the most popular is Millennial Pink. 

Brands that wear pink well: Glossier, Vineyard Vines, Angie’s Boom Chicka Pop

Brown

Earthiness, longevity, tradition and reliability are a few words that brown often helps portray. From outdoor brands to photographers to food brands, brown is more common in color palettes than you might think. 

Brands that wear brown well: Elanaloo, Seed Phytonutrients, Nespresso

White  

White is always the unsung hero in my opinion. Whether it’s used to evoke a clean, pure, minimal vibe or to simply create that much needed white space, you simply can’t go wrong with it.

Brands that wear white well: since white is such a universal color, it’s hard to narrow down to three brands. 

Black

Black is typically known for elegance, formal, authority, confidence and trustworthiness. You’ll find black being used from sports brands to boutique hotels to high end brands, as black is such a versatile color to have within your wheelhouse. 

Brands that wear black well: Chanel, Nike, LeLabo

Looking for more branding and design inspiration?