How colours affect your mind – the secret to successful branding
Many professional women today are leaving their corporate jobs to make the mark in the world as business owners. Launching a business is an exciting time for any aspiring entrepreneur where every day is a new adventure.
When building a startup, branding is essential. You need to take control of your company identity and have a clear understanding of your brand. How do you go about presenting your ideas as a brand? What do you want people to think of when they hear your company name? To help you get started, use this article to understand the importance of colour when building a brand.
Colours can have a huge impact on our mood and many people have specific connotations which they apply to certain colours. Yellow inspires original though and inquisitiveness. It also create enthusiasm. Orange is often seen as an uplifting colour while blue is known to be relaxing. Red means power and raises your adrenaline. It is important to consider the emotional effects when choosing a colour. This not only applies to decorating a home, but branding a company too.
When deciding on a colour for your product or brand identity, you need to be aware of the impact this colour will have on the consumer. Just look at McDonald’s, Schweppes and Ferrari, who have all chosen bright yellow to convey a sense of optimism and happiness. Coca Cola and Virgin on the other hand, use mostly red in their brand design, to excite people and communicate dynamic energy.
As a startup founder, you need to be aware that some colours have the power to deter consumers – loud shades like hot pink and fluorescent green can be shocking and off-putting for customers. If you’re using a contrasting colour palette, a good way to check if the contrast works is to change your design into greyscale – if some of the text or part of the design is difficult to see, it means the contrast isn’t working. It’s more important to contrast the shades, not the colours. For example bright pink and equally bright green are not a good contrast – bright pink and a pale shade (even a pale pink) is much better.
Once you’ve decided on a colour scheme that works for you and your company, it should be continued throughout your branding – from the advertising and marketing campaigns, through to your web design and business cards. With instantprint, you can upload your own designs or customise existing templates to create a business card that are consistent with the rest of your branding. It’s important to make your business stand out and having a consistent brand is a great way of letting customers know your company’s identity.
If you use the same colour scheme throughout your branding, consumers will associate these colours – and all the emotional response they provoke – with your brand. You must ask the question: What feelings do you want associated with your brand? If you’re a healthcare, finance or insurance company for example, you might want to communicate trust, reliability and competence by using blue and white, while if your business is a toy shop or childcare services, you could use yellow to convey friendliness, warmth and joy.
