The Power of Colour: What colours mean in branding

Colours are just as powerful as words when it comes to branding. Colours inflict emotion, direct behaviour and express company values when used correctly. Colours also define and shape the feel and mood of your brand.

Although there's no set of rules when it comes to brand colour, you will definitely want to do a bit of research to see what colours to choose for your palette to reflect your brand ethos.

How to choose a colour for your brand

The idea of emotion connected with colour has been extensively researched through the study of colour psychology. It's a fact that we associate colours with feelings, for example a blue coloured room will feel less cozy, than say shades in the red-yellow end of the colour spectrum.

Colours also have both positive and negative connotations - the colour red associates with anger, but also love.

In this post I am not going to share an image of a chart showing what colours are associated with what emotion as choosing a colour for your brand goes much deeper than that.

Even though colours do have an effect on emotion, this doesn't necessarily mean your brand colour has to be decided by that. Colours are not just associated with emotion, but a whole range of things such as objects, elements, industries and more! Context is key and you will have to look deep into what your brand is all about to help decide on your brand colour. For example, an agricultural brand may have an exciting product, but that doesn't mean your branding has to be the colour of excitement (red). You have to take other things into account associated with your company. For example in agriculture, browns, greens and creams come to mind when you think of farming - think of your end goal and base your decision on that.

The end goal for brand colours should be to support your brand communication so that consumers can quickly identify, engage and associate themselves with your brand.

Brand Colour Scheme

Once you have chosen your core brand colour, you will want to create a colour palette. You can use the four schemes below to assist you, just remember your goal should always be choosing colours that support your brand.

Complementary colours: These colours are colours that sit opposite each other on th