39 Brand Identity: Colours
Andrea Niosi
Colour Connotations
Colours evoke different feelings for people, therefore choosing the right colour for your brand is important. When considering what colour you’d like to use to represent your brand it’s important to factor in how people react and view colours. The choice of colour for a brand is critical to how it is viewed by customers or stakeholders.
The following list examines what each colour represents and what its best utilized for:
Red
Qualities: hungry, exciting, urgent, dangerous, sexy, evocative, romantic, design, warm, fast.
Best for food, clothing, fashion, apparel, cosmetics, sports, real estate, entertainment, health care, caring, emergency services, hospitality, marketing, public relations, advertising.
Green
Qualities: natural, organic, youth, nurturing, instructional, education, adventurous, ecological, calming, nature.
Best for: medicine, science, government, recruitment, ecological-business, tourism, human resources
Blue
Qualities: credibility, calming, clean, focused, medical, professional, judicial, power, business-like.
Best for medical, scientific, utilities, government, health care, high-tech, recruitment, tradesmen, legal, information technology, dental, corporate
Orange
Qualities: creative, dynamic, energetic, youthfulness, expressive, child-like, fruitful, innocence, enthusiasm.
Best for: recruitment, food and drink, entertainment, education, sports, human resources, childcare
Yellow
Qualities: energy, drive, dynamic, encouraging, design, ideas, youth, invention, bright, positive.
Best for: childcare, food and drink, entertainment, new technology, automotive, signs and banners, e-commerce.
Purple
Qualities: spiritual, mysterious, magical, arcane, religious, evocative, sensual, well being, occult, loving.
Best for: body, mind and soul, astrology, tarot, aromatherapy, massage, yoga, arcane, healing, spiritual, occult.
Brown
Qualities: earthly, nurturing, historical, safe, financial, tradition, conservative, reliable, retrospect, steady
Best for construction, animals, mining, veterinary, finance, real estate, ecology.
White
Qualities: clinical, clean, medical, clear, purity, spacious, simple, easy, fresh.
Best for medical, science, high-tech, dental
For further reading:
Check out this post about the psychology of colour with samples of the brands that use them: https://www.oberlo.ca/blog/color-psychology-color-meanings.
This site provides very in-depth analysis of each colour and the meanings they convey: https://www.colorpsychology.org
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Attributions:
This page contains material taken from:
Beckingham, S. (2014, October 20). Is there truth in the psychology of colour or is it simply down to personal taste? Social Media for Learning.
Is there truth in the psychology of colour or is it simply down to personal taste?
Brody, S. (2016, July 19). Don’t Let Color Drown Out Your Message. Simply Secure. https://simplysecure.org/blog/color-message
Color wheel—Color calculator | sessions college. (2018, November 28). https://www.sessions.edu/color-calculator/
O’Connor, Z. (2011). Colour psychology and colour therapy: Caveat emptor. Color Forum, 36(3), 229–234.
The science behind colors and understanding what that does to you. (n.d.). The Logo Company. Retrieved June 9, 2020, from https://thelogocompany.net/logo-color-choices/
