What is Color Psychology and What Can It Do For Your Brand?

Studies show that color can affect your mood, emotions, and even physical health. For example, red can increase your heart rate and blood pressure, while blue has the opposite effect on the body. This makes color theory in marketing an essential part of choosing your company’s colors, not to mention how you use colors in marketing materials like infographics and landing pages. If you want to use colors in marketing correctly, here are some guidelines to help you.

What is Color Psychology?

In a marketing context, color psychology can have a significant impact on consumer choice. It works by associating specific colors with different emotions and buying decisions. For example, light blue is typically perceived as calming and relaxing. Suppose you’re trying to sell something like sleep medication or stress relief products (or anything else that might benefit from these connotations). In that case, a light blue can be an excellent color choice for your branding materials.

Similarly, fiery red can make viewers feel vibrant and fiery orange can make them feel cheerful; both colors are commonly used in sports sponsorships and fast-food restaurants. Since color plays a prominent role in our culture and consumer choices, it has become essential for marketers to use color theory when designing brands and advertisements. Of course, there are no hard-and-fast rules about what colors mean—the most effective colors are those that align most closely with your target audience’s emotional state at any given time. The most important thing about color theory is recognizing how colors affect people at their core level, then using them strategically to manipulate their opinions. Having scientific knowledge about color can give you an edge over competitors who don’t know what they’re doing. But a good design also requires instinctive knowledge—if something looks terrible to you, no amount of science will help it look better.

What are the Different Types of Color Schemes?

There are two basic types of color schemes: monochromatic and complementary. Monochromatic schemes involve a variety of tones within one color family, such as a range from light blue to dark blue. On its own, it doesn’t have much impact because it lacks contrast, but you can use it with other colors for impact. Complementary colors sit across from each other on a color wheel, so one is typically a primary or secondary color while its complement is neutral. In marketing circles, there are several different ways to use these colors together—you can pair them directly, or you can create an analogous scheme by combining one complementary pair with a tertiary color nearby on the wheel. For example, purple and yellow-green are opposite each other on the color wheel, while orange is close enough to blend well. On its own, though, purple might not be attractive; combine it with another color to make sure it works visually. Analogous color schemes tend to work best when you’re working with just one product or service since your audience is naturally more familiar with those hues than others may be. These include tints (which lighten) and shades (which darken). Tints always appear warmer than their parent color, while shades appear cooler. To emphasize qualities like cheerfulness or depth of character, consider using cool hues like green and blues alongside warm hues like reds and yellows. When color theory applies to things besides nature, purity isn’t always positive. If you want something particularly menacing, try pairing high saturation with low saturation. That gives you a full-spectrum feeling without any eye candy elements. For simplicity and stability, choose a color scheme based on midtones—neither bright nor dull colors will pop out against an all-neutral backdrop. It’s also suitable for creating a mood; stick with cool colors in muted tones if you want serenity. And if excitement is what you need, stick with warmer colors in lighter shades to give viewers a burst of energy. Finally, if you want a product to seem modern and fresh, pick colors from opposing sides of the color wheel—reds and greens or blues and oranges will help your customers associate your brand with change. You can also use complementary colors to bring attention to one element at once.

The Effect of Color on Marketing

Studies suggest that people associate colors with various psychological and physical attributes. Green is associated with calmness and tranquility, while red is a more stimulating color for impulse-buying. But don’t take these studies as gospel—color has a powerful effect on marketing strategies, so you might want to consider ways to incorporate it into your next marketing campaign. Here are some things to keep in mind when using color in your marketing efforts: Know Your Audience: In some cases, colors can have different effects depending on who’s looking at them. While pink might be great for a cosmetics ad targeted toward women, it may not have quite as much impact on men or women who aren’t interested in makeup. Take advantage of color psychology by selecting colors based on your audience. For example, if you’re trying to reach tech-savvy millennials, you might want to use blue and orange; those colors stimulate creativity and self-expression. Stay Current: As we mentioned earlier, some colors hold particular meanings while others do not. It’s crucial to stay up-to-date on color theory to make sure that your marketing plans are effective. If red stops being seen as an aggressive hue, adjust your approach accordingly. One way brands stay current is by talking with their customers about their preferences.

3 Tools to Incorporate Color Psychology into Your Brand

While there are many color psychology tools, here are three to get you started. i) Pantone’s Palette Generator: (https://www.pantone.com/connect) The first step is to pick your favorite colors. Don’t worry too much about color accuracy—Pantone offers several conversion formulas if you know both RGB and hex codes for your colors. After choosing your favorite colors, select one that you want to use as the main branding element, then choose four secondary colors to incorporate into your branding scheme. ii) Adobe Kuler: (https://color.adobe.com/Kuler-color-theme-8031663/) Another excellent resource for choosing primary and secondary hues is Adobe Kuler, which features thousands of colors handpicked by interior designers. Search through their categories until you find ones that speak to you. Then hover over a color square to see what it looks like on a gradient scale from lightest (top) to darkest (bottom). Once you find some shades that match your overall brand idea, try out different combinations on your logo or landing page with essential design software like Photoshop or Illustrator. iii) COLOURlovers: (https://www.colourlovers.com) Want even more options? ColourLovers provides tens of thousands of color palettes from around the world. For example, searching pastel pink brings up dozens of related palettes with different base shades and additional tertiary colors included as well.