The human relationship with colour is highly emotive and subjective, with a myriad of personal factors including background, taste, experiences and culture affecting our conscious and subconscious preferences. Colour holds the ability to effect human behaviours and can also influence and enhance our moods due to the emotions and connotations they convey to us – hence the muted greens we find in our hospitals, and the yellows that brighten our children’s nurseries.
A recent study showed that up to 90% of consumers pick brands or products based on colour alone, this is why colour is imperative within the branding process to create a strong and relatable identity for your audiences.
Here’s some of our golden rules to follow:
1. Own a colour formed in the mind of your consumers
Using a stronger core colour in a brand, not only boosts brand recognition by 80% but it helps your brand to differentiate itself from its competitors in a unique way. For example, Apple is known for its clean lines, elegance and future thinking, which is why Space Grey works so well for them.
2. Stand out from the crowd
Rare and unique colours draw more attention to your communications, and so you are more likely to be remembered. Coca Cola is synonymous with red, a bold, fun, uplifting and loud colour that has come to embody their brand and campaign style.
3. Show your brand personality
Every brand has its own personality, values and character traits, and a lot of this should be linked to the colours in their world. Customers value colour relevance in brands, and often don’t buy into brands if they feel like the personality of the brand isn’t being conveyed with authenticity through their chosen palette.
4. Stick to the universal rules
The most universally loved colour is blue because it evokes feelings of trust, connectivity and being dependable, which is probably why we can think of thousands of brands who use blue as their key identifier. Brands such as HP, Dell and Facebook are all blue, reflecting the connected and trustworthy aspirations of the mega brands behind the colour.
Picking colours for your brand is one of the first steps to building a brilliant brand personality and identity. At Underscore we value personality as much as purpose, as both are essential steps on the road to articulate what it is that you want your product or company to convey. Over the years we have helped many brands to reinvent themselves through story and strategy but one fast track to reinvigoration and recognition will always be through getting the colour palette on point.