Don’t you just love the cheerful, confident expression of the Fanta logo, the bold, noticeable expression of the CNN logo, and the mixed, colourful expression of the Microsoft logo? The combination of colour and texts or shapes in these logos add up to give it meaning and to distinguish these brand from others.

This is exactly why companies apply colour psychology when designing their brand elements. They do it to optimise the visual appeal customers get whenever they come across their products, services, or brand. Read through to learn more. 

What is Color Psychology?

Colour psychology is a field of study that focuses on understanding how we humans perceive colours and their tones, and how this impacts us or how we respond to it. Essentially, colours have an influence on our mood, behaviour and actions, and colour psychology tries to determine the extent of this influence.

Marketers, branding teams and whole companies take advantage of colour psychology in designing their brands, products and services with colours that appeal to customers. This could serve to increase the trust that customers have for them, prompt them to take an action, or to keep them distinct from other similar brands. 

Why is colour psychology important in branding?

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Numerous companies are springing on the idea of using colour psychology in their branding efforts. And you know what? The results are all exciting. In this section, we take a look at why this is so and why it is important to use colour psychology when branding your business. 

Colour Psychology Helps Create Appealing Brand Elements and Products

If you are a manufacturer, the one thing you would want to have are appealing products. Of course, this means ticking a lot of boxes. For example, your products must come in the right size (whether portable or industrial), be of good quality, and appear colourful (having an enticing colour). 

Getting that enticing colour is as crucial as anything else. And to hit the nail on the head, a business must first understand the principles of colour psychology and then correctly apply it. 

‍Colour Psychology Helps Businesses Better Express Their Ideology 

A payment service company would likely express or promote trust whereas, on the other hand, a healthcare or food delivery company would promote hygiene or health safety. Expressing these various ideologies is possible if a business chooses to use colours associated with them.

For instance, the payment service might use blue to foster a feeling of trust while the food delivery company might decide to use red to express that they have an active and ready service.  

Dos and Don'ts of colour psychology 

The field of colour psychology is interesting and effective even though it is also complex. When applying this in branding, there’s a thin line between what will work and what won’t work. This is what we refer to as the dos and don’ts of colour psychology. Here is the list of dos and don’ts. 

Dos of Colour Psychology

Use Colours that Express Your Brand

As we mentioned earlier, one of the most important things you should implement after learning about colour psychology is to get your colours to express your brand idea, drive or purpose.

The way in which these colours are presented helps in distinguishing one company from another. In addition, applying colour psychology in your branding process speaks of the sophistication of your business over those of your competitors. 

Play With Contrasting Colours

Contrasting colours are colours that appear distinct from each other, especially because they exist on varying sides of the colour wheel, and not because they have high or low tones. These colours make for a beautiful brand when they are applied with creativity and some expertise.

However, to achieve this, a business would have to avoid using highly contrasting colours in their branding. 

Keep Colours Consistent Across Digital and Physical Brand Elements

A fundamental principle of branding is that brand elements (for example, logo) and their attributes (for example, shape or size) should be kept unchanged as much as possible and across all channels. This consistency is crucial. It also even applies to applying colours in branding. 

Don’ts of Colour Psychology 

Don’t Use Many Different Colours

Inexperienced branding teams make the mistake of using many different colours. It doesn’t matter whether this happens across a number of brand elements (for example on a logo, flyer, and product package) or on one single brand element (for example, a logo), too many colours just simply create an ugly scene. 

List of colours and their associated meanings 

Psychology of colour black

Following colour psychology, the black colour represents sadness or grief. On a brighter note, however, the colour also represents sophistication and power. Most companies that use it for branding purposes look to convey this second set of meanings. 

Examples of companies successfully applying black colour in their brands are the technology company Apple, the sportswear and accessories producer Nike, and the kids TV show service Cartoon Network. 

Psychology of colour green

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Everyone probably knows that the colour green points to nature, health - good health, and growth. By growth, it is ok to think both physical, biological growth and business growth or expansion. Another term that is increasingly being associated with the color green is money and generousity, especially relating to finance. 

The use of colour green in marketing efforts tends to assure customers that a product is made from natural ingredients or, at least, that is relates to the medical and healthcare industry. Alternatively, green gives the idea that a product is high quality.

This relates more to electronic or mechanical products that have been tested and found to be “healthy” or “safe” for customers. 

Some popular companies that employ colour green in their branding are the music streaming service Spotify, the energy drink line Monster Energy, and the software developing company behind the Android OS. 

Psychology of colour red

The psychological effect of colour red is that of attention. This means that using red in a brand element will likely cause users to notice or pay attention to your product or service.

There’s a clause here, however. It is that people pay attention to the colour red because they feel either a strong positive emotion or a similarly strong but negative emotion.  

Emotions on the right side include love, energy, passion, and excitement. On the other hand, negative emotions associated with the colour include danger, anger, and urgency. 

Businesses can utilise both the positive and negative outlooks of the red. For example a feeling of urgency is employed for a call to action like the red “subscribe now” button on YouTube while a feeling of love is evoked to prompt users to make gift purchases on e-commerce websites. 

Some companies that make use of the colour red in branding are the refreshment drink producer Coca-Cola, the toy and brick set manufacturers Lego, and the oil and gas company ExxonMobil. 

Psychology of colour blue

Blue colour is associated with warm emotions like calm, and peace in colour psychology. It also means stability, ease, harmony, and trust. Introducing this colour in your branding efforts offers the idea that your brand has a good track record and so people should trust it.

To foster such trust, you would typically find businesses presenting their social proofs including positive reviews and testimonials, awards and case studies, user generated content, or influencer seal of approval in this blue colour. 

E-commerce stores and retailers of healthcare products are two companies that particularly use blue in their branding effort. The first one does so because they want to encourage customers to trust the products they are purchasing even though they can’t physically inspect or try them out.

For healthcare product retailers, blue branding elements prompt users to trust the health safety quality of their products. 

Companies that make use of blue in their branding are the social media service Twitter, the dental health company Oral-B, and the global financial services company J.P. Morgan. 

Psychology of colour white

Colour psychology identifies colour white to mean honesty, innocence, and, perhaps, humility. In some instances also, the colour could mean inactivity or a lack of interest.

This opposing translations make it necessary for brands to carefully consider their target audience before using white colour in any of their branding elements. 

Asides its perceived meaning, the use of colour white in branding is due to the fact that a white background against a black font works perfectly in enhancing readability. Companies that make use of white colour in their branding typically also make use of black colour. 

Common misconceptions about colour psychology

The biggest misconception about colour psychology is that colours and their associated meanings are fixed. It leads people to think that a particular colour would always evoke one specific emotion in just about anyone. This is deeply incorrect.

Psychological experts have come to understand that people’s perception of a colour could very well be subjective in nature. In fact, the way a person interprets colours depends on different factors including bias that could arise from personal trauma. 

Conclusion

Whether you are designing a logo, creating an ad, crafting a digital marketing piece or designing your product or packaging material, there is always a way to inculcate brand-friendly colours.

Also, remember that the best way to get this done is by staying consistent with your colours and the way you apply them. If you’ve read up to this point then you have enough knowledge to build your own colour appealing brand and we would love to hear about your journey with this in the comments section.

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