When it comes to building a memorable brand the role of colour in brand identity becomes extremely important, you will need a colour scheme that reflects the personality of your brand as well as fits with your business’s story.

Brand colour is a powerful communication tool

The role of colour in brand identity works on your customer’s subconscious level and has the power to influence their feelings and emotions. Colours have an amazing effect on people, someone can look at your brand identity and form an opinion of your brand without ever trying your service, sampling one of your products, or meeting you or any of your staff.

Choosing your business’s brand colour

Businesses tend to make the choice of the role of colour in brand identity based on their own preferences. However, we lose the opportunity to understand the impact of colour has on the emotional and psychological effects on our customers.

BELOW IS A LIST OF SOME COLOURS AND THEIR EMOTIONAL & PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS

Red

– The colour red can trigger powerful emotions both positive and negative. The positive connotations are strength, warmth, energy, stimulation, masculinity, passionate and excitement. The negative connotations are aggression, defiance and danger.

– Red has the ability to capture one’s attention, it creates a sense of urgency which is why it’s effective with sales. Ever noticed that some brands use the colour red for their call to action buttons or sale icons.

– Can increase the appetite, hence is used frequently in the fast food sector, for example Pizza Hut, KFC and Coca-Cola.

– Gets the pulse racing which is why it’s associated with fast cars and lingerie.

Orange

– The colour of orange generates positive feelings of warmth, youthfulness, impulse, freedom, confidence, excitement and fun. The negative feelings are immaturity and deprivation.

– It’s a very social colour, making people open up and enhance their communication. It gets people talking and inspires a good mood.

– Is used often in products for kids. While orange catches the attention of people of all ages, kids are especially drawn to it.

– Stimulates the appetite. Orange will keep people talking and eating for a long time. Restaurants use pastel versions of orange, such as apricot, peach and terracotta as their décor which encourages their patrons to have a good time and to eat and drink more.

Yellow

– The colour yellow represents optimism, clarity, creativity, confidence, fun and happiness. The negative connotations are anxiety, unstable and irresponsible.

– It’s the brightest colour of the visible spectrum, and it’s the most noticeable of all colours by the human eye.

– It’s believed to have an influence on the left side of the brain where deep thinking and perception dwells.

– Yellow has the ability to increase the heart rate, tastebuds and appetite, which makes it a popular choice for fast food restaurants.

Green

– The colour of green associates with positive feelings of hope, health, freshness, stability, nature, restoration and growth. Negative feelings are boredom, envy, stagnation and jealousy.

– A relaxing, calming and pleasing colour that’s easy on the eye. It’s known to have a soothing effect to human vision.

– Green branding promotes clarity of the mind and the balancing of our emotions.

– It can be linked to growth of power, for example money, military, banking and finance. And also, healthy brands from pharmaceuticals to organic food.

Blue

– The colour of blue represents intelligence, communication, efficiency, logic, openness, masculine, calm, stability and ambitious. The negative connotations are being cold and unfriendly.

– Blue suppresses the appetite as it indicates spoilage and poison.

– This cool, calming colour is used as a fear and tension reducer, since it has the effect of slowing down pulse rate.

– According to studies blue has been shown to be favoured among both men and women.

Purple

– The colour purple triggers positive feelings of spirituality, royalty, luxury, wealth, fantasy and imaginative. The negative feelings are inferiority, introverted and moody.

– History has shown that purple has been the colour of superiority such as royalty.

– Purple is among the rarest of colours in nature and as such can come as either special or artificial.

Pink

– The colour pink represents positive connotations of femininity, love, nurturing, care, innocence, excitement, calm and quirky. The negative connotations are physical weakness and inhibition.

– Pink is the most widely used colour to portray femininity.

– The colour is calming and alleviates the feelings of anger, aggression, resentment, abandonment and neglect.

– Different shades of pink convey different meanings. Hot pinks extrude energy, youthfulness, fun and excitement and are recommended for less expensive or trendy products. And the lighter pinks are more romantic.

Black

– The colour black associates with positive feelings of sophistication, credibility, bold, rich, elegant, contemporary and timelessness. The negative feelings are seriousness and oppressive.

– When black is combined with white it exudes elegance and taste.

– Black is best associated with timeless style but it also communicates mourning.

– Using black as a background allows customers to focus on product photos without the overall layout seeming fussy or overdone.

White & Grey

– The colour white and grey triggers positive feelings of innocence, purity, simplicity, cleanliness, freshness, peace, futuristic, sophistication. Negative feelings are clinical, emptiness, distant, boring and cautious.

– White and grey is the most minimal of all the colours, which assists in imbuing a heightened perception of space.

– Well executed can offer a modern, sleek, simplistic and clean look and feel, but poorly executed can look lazy, nothingness and lack personality.