How to Choose Colors for Your Personal Brand 

Brand Color Palette // Color Psychology for Branding

Choosing the right colors for your personal brand is an important decision, as it can help establish your brand identity and set you apart from your competition. Here are some tips for selecting personal brand colors

Color is one of the brand pillars when we talk about its stimulation visuals. This article will help you to determine your brand colors in 4 simple steps.

#1 Color & Emotions

Set the tone of your brand

In a world of endless possibilities and numerous competitors, setting the right tone for your brand is key to establishing a rapport with your audience. Whether you’re aiming to be professional, casual, witty, or persuasive, the tone you adopt speaks volumes about your brand. There are several factors that play a role in setting the tone, from the language and style of your content to your brand color and recognition. Your goal should be to craft a consistent message that resonates with your audience and leaves a lasting impression. After all, your brand voice is the foundation of your identity and a reflection of the values that you stand for. So choose your tone wisely, and let it be the guiding force that leads your brand to success.

Color is a powerful thing. And if you choose your brand color or brand palette based on preference alone (“I like green, so let’s have a green logo!), then you’re missing out big time because people associate certain colors with specific emotions or thoughts–and when used strategically this knowledge opens amazing opportunities!

Different colors in branding psychology evoke different emotions, that`s why companies in the same niche use similar colors. For example, fast food companies use a lot of red, orange, and yellow to stimulate hunger and to seem exciting, energetic, and affordable. Tech companies and financial institutions often use blue to convey trust, reliability, security, and logic.

Every color is a two-sided coin: it embeds both positive and negative connotations or brand color meanings. Negative association comes into play when we overuse one color, and don`t mix it with other colors. When picking brand colors, we focus on their positive meaning.

The psychological properties and combinations of 12 basic colors

Each color implies certain emotional associations that can strengthen brand awareness.

ACTION REQUIRED

Look through the brand color’s psychological property and determine what emotions and feelings your brand wants to evoke in the audience and align certain emotions with colors. Write down these 2-3 emotions.

 

#2 Brand Color Palette & Brand Personality

The next step is to decide your ideal brand personality. Imagine your brand is a living person, a cartoon or movie character. What brand personality traits it should have? Is it fun and friendly, innocent and youthful, or serious and mature? Is your brand personality young, old, or middle-aged? What outfit your character wears: modern or classic, luxurious or mass market, formal or casual?

What it tries communicating to the audience, what`s the message behind these traits: ignite to action, inspire, foster confidence, feel relaxed and safe, etc.

ACTION REQUIRED:

Picture your brand personality and write down 3-5 traits.

If you know what your business personality traits are but are still struggling to come up with the perfect brand kit and color, try either one of these branding personality quizzes.

·        99designs

·        Grasshopper

#3 Colors and Brand Audience

 Knowing your brand personality, let`s connect it to the audience.

Who will use your services and products, what’s their gender, age, professional background, worries and concerns, values etc. Some colors are associated with certain group of people. For example, pink is all about femininity, youth, some colors are neutral green, light blue, grey. Try to the color codes to your audience if possible.

 

ACTION REQUIRED :

Knowing the color properties (see step 1) attribute 1-2 colors to your audience.

#4 Algorithm for Building a Brand Color Scheme

Let`s analyze what psychological properties are repetitive in all 3 previous steps. What common emotions do your brand personality and brand audience have? 

Now you are ready to build the brand’s association color scheme.

Brand color schemes usually have 1-4 colors. Plan choosing 3 colors: base, accent and neutral

1. BASE (primary) color

Primary color is the most important because it reflects your brand personality  Which of your brand’s personality traits do you think is most important? Your base color should reflect not only the dominant personality trait, but also how well it matches with what audience members are looking for. You’ll choose remaining colors based on this consideration as well!

Your brand’s core color is the one most associated with your brand. Think of the signature color brown Tiffany’s Blue or Pinterest’s red.

For your primary color, look for a single color that best embodies your business based on color meanings from the table above. Later you may experiment with different shades and tints of the same color that you have in mind.

2. ACCENT (secondary) color(s). 

First, it again should correlate to the emotions you want to communicate. Second, it must visually pair with your base color.

See the color scheme below for guidance.

You may choose from 1 to 4 brand colors that go along with the base color. To match and blend primary brand colors and secondary brand colors use one of the color schemes below 

3. NEUTRAL colors.

As a rule, these are different hues of beige, grey, whites and off-whites. Neutral colors are important as they are the ones in charge of most of your communication (such as the color of your written text) and will appear as a background in most of your images.

Tip #1

Once you picked your primary and secondery colors, place them all together and get a few different combinations using such web source as https://colorpalettes.net/ Select and save the color palette for future reference.

Tip#2

Color Rule 60:30:10

 A simple rule known as “60-30-10” can help you create a proper balance and digital products (posts, website), product packing, use this proportion as a part of strategic consistency:

60% of neutral color (e.g. background)

30% of base color (e.g. section)

10% of accent color (details, buttons, fonts)

Where you can use brand colors:

1. logo
2. mood board
3. photo filters
4. business card
5. product packing
6. social media posts
7. social media posts
8. website and landing pages
9. visual triggers (accessories)
10. presentation and promo materials
11. book cover (if one day you decide to write a book)
12. social media images and elements (highlights cover)
13. even your clothes, accessories, phone cover and all other triggering details

Summary

By using the same colors in all your business visuals you strengthen your personal brand and increase brand recognition and awareness among your audience, making an impressive brand kit/

1.  Know your audience: Consider the age, gender, location, and interests of your target audience. Different colors may have different meanings or associations in different cultures, so it’s important to choose colors that resonate with your audience.
2. Consider your brand personality: Think about the values and personality traits that you want your brand to convey. Are you looking for something bold and energetic, or something calm and soothing? Different colors can evoke different emotions and moods, so choose colors that match your brand personality.
3. Choose primary colors: Select a dominant color for your brand that will be used in the majority of your branding materials, such as your logo, website, and marketing materials. This will help establish a consistent and recognizable brand identity.
4. Choose accent colors: Once you’ve selected your primary colors, choose one or two accent colors that complement it. These can be used to add variety and interest to your branding materials, such as in graphics or typography.
5. Test your color choices: Once you’ve selected your brand color palette, test it out by creating mock-ups of your branding materials. Make sure the colors work well together and that their right combination looks good in both digital and print formats.

Remember that your personal brand colors should be a reflection of your brand identity and values, so choose colors that you feel represent you and your business in the best possible way.