Choosing the right colours for your business is a task that should not be taken lightly.
Colours convey an instant message. It is not a coincidence that brides wear white and the red in a traffic light means “stop”. Colours have the power to communicate information immediately, without using words. This is why choosing the colours that you will use to showcase your business is important.
The colour palette that you use for your brand will communicate a message to your customers, so it is worth spending a bit of time thinking about which ones to choose.
In this blog post I will talk you through how to choose the right colours for your business in 6 steps!
Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links. This means, I get a commission if you purchase through my links, at no cost to you.
How to Choose Your Brand’s Colour Palette
A colour palette is the group of colours that you will use to create your business collateral, including your logo, website, social media imagery, ads, stationery and more.
It is considered best practice to choose a colour palette (about 4-8 colours) for your business and stick to it, rather than using different colours every time.
The reason behind this is that you want to achieve a consistent look for your brand. You want customers to get familiar with the look and feel of your brand. This will help build a relationship with your audience and, in the long term, make your brand instantly recognisable.
1. Define your brand personality
Your colour palette needs to align with your brand’s personality. How do you want your business to be perceived?
It can help to think of your business as a person. If you walked into a room and met your business for the first time, what would they be like? Would they be formal or funny? Outgoing or reserved? What would they wear – high heels or trainers?
To help you define your brand’s personality, I have put together a list of adjectives below. Highlight the ones that best describe your business:
Now choose the top 3 words that best describe your brand’s personalit
Now choose the top 3 words that best describe your brand’s personality. Write them down in a piece of paper.
2. Define your ideal customer
Defining your ideal customer will help you showcase your business in a way that will resonate with them. Your favourite colour may be yellow, but – what will your ideal customer relate to this colour?
Here are some question to get your started when defining your ideal customer:
- How old are they?
- Where do they live?
- Are they male or female?
- Married or single?
- What are their values?
- What type of content do they engage with? Blogs, emails, videos, social media.
- How old are they?
- Where do they live?
- Are they male or female?
- Married or single?
- What are their values?
- What type of content do they engage with? Blogs, emails, videos, social media.
It can be a good idea to create an Ideal Customer Avatar. This is a fictional person (or people) that represents your ideal customer.
It can be very helpful to go through this exercise and create an ideal customer avatar for your business. Give them a name and a photo, and you can refer back to him or her as you brainstorm colour options for your business.
3. Explore colour meanings
Now that you have defined your brand’s personality, you will need to choose colours that will help you create that vibe for your business. It can be a good idea to check out Canva’s Library of Colour Meanings and Symbolism.
As the name suggests, this is a library that contains information about what different colours portray and symbolise. For example, according to Canva, this is the meaning of the colour pastel red:
“Pastel red is a shade of red, a color associated with intensity. Anger, energy, passion and danger are all linked with the hue, however pastel red’s softer hue means it is less likely to make that impression. Rather, pastel red’s dreamy appearance is more likely to be associated with love and romance, as it is close to the color of rose flowers typically given on Valentine’s Day.” (Source: Canva)
Pretty interesting, right? Have a look at a few colours and their meanings, and write down the codes of the ones that would best suit your brand (e.g #FF0000)
4. Search for inspiration
Now that you have chosen the colours that you may want to use for your brand, have a look around and see how other businesses use those colours.
You can have a look at what your competitors are doing. What works for others in your industry? What can you do to come up with a look that is different from others within your field?
Pinterest is also a great source of inspiration. Head to pinterest and search for your colour + branding (E.g: blue and gold branding) and see what ideas come up.
You can create a board on Pinterest to collect your ideas or use a more old-school (but still effective!) method of cutting and pasting images to create a visual board. Have a look through magazines and collect any colour combinations that catch your eye on a scrapbook.
5. Create your colour palette
Now that you have a better idea of the colours that you want to use for your business, you can go ahead and create your colour palette.
Once again, I recommend that you take advantage of the amazing free tools offered by Canva. For example, they have a really clever colour palette generator with hundreds of existing colour palettes up for grabs. Check them out!
Free tools to help you choose colours for your business
1 – Canva’s colour Palette Library
Browse through thousands of ready-made colour palette combinations. You can search by theme, colour or keyword.
2 – Canva’s colour Palette Generator
This tool creates a colour palette based on an image. So if you have found a photo that you love, upload it into Canva and the system will create a colour palette based on it.
This colour wheel tells you which colours work well together. So if you’ve found one colour that you love, have a play to see which could be a good secondary option to go with it.
6. Test your brand colours
Now that you have your colour palette, you can test it in your business material to see how they work together. Do you convey the message you were hoping for?
It can be a good idea to test your choices with some family and friends and get their thoughts. Or, why not send me an email with your creation? I would love to have a look!
Conclusion
It can take a little bit of trial and error to come up with the right colour palette for your business, but it is worth spending the time to choose the right ones.
Follow the 6 six steps above and have a play with the free to create the perfect colour palette for your brand.
Want more tips and inspirations? Read these:
- How to start a business while working full time
- How to overcome the fear of starting a business
- Signs it is time to start your own business
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