How to choose & combine your brand colors
Reading Time: 7 minutes
Did you know that 94% of a brand’s first impressions are based on design? And that colors play a very important part in that first impression? Colors quickly evoke feelings, so it’s extremely important to choose your brand colors strategically.
When you’re DIY-ing your brand design, I recommend you keep it simple and create a color scheme of 3 or 4 colors. What your brand colors should be, depends on the message and tone of your brand.
Building a brand isn’t only about getting a custom-designed logo and website. Sure, those things help, but it’s not just the design of your website that is going to draw in customers. It’s definitely part of your brand, but so are your content, your message, and your tone. Your message and tone need to be clear before you can do anything else with regard to branding. Only once you’ve nailed those, you can decide your colors, fonts, logo, and website design.
The combination of colors is perhaps even more important than the exact colors themselves. If you use a teal color in combination with other bright colors, that’s going to give a completely different vibe than using that same teal color in combination with more muted teals and other muted colors.
How do you want your clients or customers to feel when they interact with your brand?
A brand focusing on empowerment is going to have a totally different look & feel than a brand focusing on simplifying and creating stillness. Brighter colors excite both the mind and body and can be sources of energy and creativity. More neutral and muted colors tend to increase mental focus and have a calming effect.
How to choose your brand colors: Collect inspiration
While we’re all multi-faceted, when it comes to branding, you need to limit yourself to create consistency. Pick two or three of the main values you want to convey for your brand or offer. (E.g. love, family, travel, transformation, creation, organization, etc.). Then go to Pinterest and start pinning images and website designs that convey those values for you.
Once you have a good amount of images on your brand board, you’ll probably start to notice the things they have in common. Perhaps they’re all using bright colors, or are feminine & chic, or maybe they’re more minimalistic. Figure out what it is you like about all these designs, then continue to pick colors, fonts, and even textures or patterns that will create a similar look & feel for your website.
How to choose colors for your coaching business: Color psychology
When it comes to color psychology, the overview below only scratches the surface. Light pink gives off a totally different vibe than bright pink, and so every shade of each color will evoke slightly different feelings. Also, while colors evoke feelings subconsciously, keep in mind color psychology is largely cultural. For example, in the western world, white symbolizes innocence. In many Asian cultures, white is actually a color of mourning. So if a large part of your target market is from a different culture, look into what the colors mean to them. And again, how you combine colors is even more important than the exact colors themselves. After this part, I’ll tell you how to combine colors.
Red is a strong, bold color that conveys passion, motivation, courage, and determination. It’s a great brand color for coaches whose clients want to become more assertive or courageous, are looking for their passion or purpose, or relationship or dating coaches.
Orange conveys friendliness, playfulness, and happiness. It’s an energizing, encouraging, and positive color. It’s a great brand color for health coaches whose clients want to become more active.
Yellow grabs your attention + stimulates your mind. It conveys happiness, optimism, and confidence. It’s best for cheerful and energetic brands.
Green stands for growth, freshness, healing, and nature. It’s a great brand color for health coaches.
Turquoise conveys compassion, healing, and sophistication. It has a calming effect. It’s a great brand color for coaches whose clients want to beat overwhelm of any kind, or health coaches.
Blue conveys tranquility, loyalty, security, trust, and dependability. It has a calming effect. It’s a great brand color for coaches whose clients want to beat overwhelm of any kind, or who are working through trust issues.
Purple symbolizes spirituality, power, and ambition. It’s a great brand color for coaches whose clients are looking to reclaim their own power.
Pink is typically associated with romantic and girly brands. It symbolizes intimacy and compassion and is a sweet, nurturing color. Bright pink conveys power and self-confidence. It’s a great brand color for coaches whose clients want to work on self-love, or relationship or dating coaches.
Brown gives off an organic + wholesome vibe. It conveys reliability, honesty, and confidence. It’s a great brand color for health coaches whose clients want to live an organic or outdoorsy lifestyle.
Tan/Beige conveys reliability and has a warm, welcoming vibe. It has similar associations as brown and is a great neutral color to add to your brand’s color palette.
Grey is a great neutral color to add to your brand’s color palette. It conveys security and reliability and evokes a timeless + sophisticated vibe.
A lighter grey or silver is also associated with glamour, high-tech, and elegance.
Gold stands for wealth, prosperity, and being valuable and traditional.
Black is a timeless, classic color. It conveys protection, sophistication, elegance, and formality. It’s a great neutral to add to your brand’s color palette.
White conveys cleanliness, innocence, and simplicity. It evokes feelings of renewal. It’s a great neutral to add to your brand’s color palette or make it one of your main brand colors (use a lot of white) if your clients are looking to beat overwhelm of any kind.
How to combine colors to create a color scheme for your brand
There are many ways to combine colors to create an attractive color palette, and all of them are based on the color wheel. The color wheel consists of all colors with the warm colors on one side and the cold colors on the other side, with similar colors next to each other.
For DIY design, I recommend sticking with one of 3 ways to combine colors.
1. The monochromatic color scheme
The first and easiest way to combine colors is monochromatic – using different shades of just one color. This generally creates a harmonious color palette, that’s very easy on the eyes and has a soothing effect.
However, it can be difficult to highlight the most important elements using only this palette. Add the complementary color for such elements. The complementary color is the color that’s the exact opposite of the main color on the color wheel.
2. The split complementary color scheme
The second option is the split complementary palette. This is a scheme of three colors, one color on one side, the other two the immediate neighbors of the complementary color. This scheme generally conveys a more energetic vibe. To balance it out, use muted tones of the split complementary colors.
3. The triadic color scheme
The third option is the triadic palette. These are three colors that are the same distance from each other on the color wheel. This scheme also conveys a more energetic vibe than the monochromatic palette, but it looks more balanced and harmonious than the split complementary palette.
Resources to create your color scheme
Find inspiration for your color scheme at Canva Color Palettes, ColourLovers, and Design Seeds. Or create your own color scheme using Adobe Color CC.
Once you’ve got a color scheme you’re happy with, continue building your brand look with Creative Market’s Logo Templates, Patterns and Textures.
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