Colours in a Brand

In branding the colour is most important because colour can drag down the brand. When designing something for a brand like logo, packaging or a mark its best that the designer won’t design with a particular colour in mind. The designer has to ensure that the mark will work in several different colours. The best way to test the colours is to first start with the natural dimensions of colour: hue (red vs. blue), saturation (bright blue vs. blue gray), and brightness (light blue vs. dark blue). The designer has to understand the context of colour-how a light shape on a dark field looks smaller than a dark shape on a light field.

When customers see the product the first thing that they see is the colour. Colour communicates at the speed of light. The brain responds to colour the same way it responds to pleasure or pain. It’s immediate, primal. Before choosing the colour the designer has to know the cultural connotations of the colour, for example red can mean love but also can mean danger.

There are a lot of theories about colours for example schools and hospitals use favor teal paint for interior walls to make people feel calm, while restaurants are more likely to choose red interiors to make people feel hungry. But these theories can change over time. Colour can be chosen by season like fashion markets and be a trend for example if a fashion brand use a light blue an interior brand can use the same colour.

Colours make an important difference in cultures as well for examples in Western cultures, people wear black to funerals, while in Eastern cultures mourners wear white. The cultural connotations of colour are often learned and permeate a market.

References:

Kevin Budelmann, 2013. Essential Elements for Brand Identity: 100 Principles for Designing Logos and Building Brands (Design Essentials). Edition. Rockport Publishers.