What colors do I use for my logo design?

Let’s find out the meaning of colors and help decide what color is best for your logo.

Think about your business. Does the idea of a color come to mind? Like a landscaping company, what colors would you think about? If you said green and brown you are right. How about a company who sells pool products? If your answer is blue, you are correct.

What if it isn’t obvious as to what colors you should use? That’s when you think about the character of your business. Is your business one that works with females? Then purple is the color to choose.

Let’s look at colors and what they mean.

Red - Click to learn more

The meaning of red runs the spectrum of feelings from warmth and love to anger and danger. Words like boldness, excitement, speed, strength, energy, determination, aggressiveness, desire, passion, courage, and socialism. Red can create a sense of urgency and is often used in sales.

Pink - Click to learn more

As for the meaning of pink creates feelings of love, caring, and nurturing, and is a good soft, warm color to go with browns and reds. Pink is very romantic and great when selling to women and girls nowadays. There is a story here, as white was originally used for children’s clothes due to its cheapness and how it would just be bleached to be cleaned. But when pastel colors became popular for child clothing, there was a general idea that pink was a strong color for boys and blue was a dainty color for girls. This was what many parents went with for their children until around the time when the baby boomer generation was born. Around then, manufacturers began making pink clothes for girls only and blue for boys. Thus establishing the gendered colors people use nowadays.

Orange

I think orange is a fun color, though it seems to be the color very few people consider their favorite. When we think of the meaning of orange, we think about it depicting cheerfulness. When it comes to money it helps to show affordability and low cost.  It’s enthusiastic, stimulates the mind, and is creative. We think of food when we think of orange. Orange in a retail setting is used to energize people and push for action, as in impulse buying.

Yellow

Yellow, talk about an interesting color. Next to white, yellow is used the most for billboards. Why? Because it is a reflective color in the evening. Next time you are driving along, take a look at how many dark billboards there are and what colors are being using on those billboards. So, without having to tell you, yellow is attention-grabbing, lively, creates optimism. It can be overwhelming, too. We think of Summer, energy, fun, and happiness. It creates a sense of liveliness. For the most part it is used on signs to grab attention.

Green

Relax, we’re going to talk about green. Yes, green, the reliable color. When we look at green we think about words to calm and relax us. We think about the environment and the well-being of our life. Spring and nature come to mind. How about about being safe, freshness, and harmony. We even think about wealth. What a great color to include as part of your logo’s pallet.

Blue

Talk about a color that has a multitude of meanings only because there are many different blues to choose from. The blue, royal blue, and navy blue. Let’s talk about each one of these. First, when we think about blue we think about the sky and peace. There’s a sense of professionalism, reliability, trust, honor, and loyalty when we think about blue. When it comes to royal blue, it a retail setting it is often used to create a sense of urgency and cause a need for impulse buying. On the other hand, navy blue creates a sense of being price-sensitive and appearing to be cheaper. Blue can also create a sense of being cold and thinking of Winter. When compared to red, blue is often the color that represents intelligence and wisdom, as opposed to red’s aggressiveness and strength.

Purple

We think of royalty when we see purple. Purple embodies power, nobility, elegance, luxury, and sophistication. This is in part due to the rarity of the plant used to dye cloth purple, making it only a choice for the rich and powerful to wear. There can be a sense of mystery and magic about purple as well. Products for anti-aging might use purple for the main color of the packaging.

Gray

What do you think when you see gray. Talk about a useless color. It’s dull, uninteresting, conservative, traditionalistic, intelligent. Wait? Intelligent. It may have a purpose when it comes to masculine products. Don’t forget about it.

Brown

Brown, now here’s a very solid color. Naturally, brown is around us in many ways from our shoes to our wooden floors. Brown is earthy, natural, solid, reliable, and even genuine. It represents Fall.

Black

Black. Here’s a one that is actually the lack of color, yet we find it to be a strong color. It can be elegant and sophisticated at the same time powerful and strong. It can be morbid and depressing when representing death and night. When used in a retail setting it is great to create an environment to sell luxury products.

From a standpoint of color, what else can it do?

It can affect the way we experience food. Change the color of a lime product to yellow and we will think it tastes like lemons. Some companies have even tried changing the color of packaging only for consumers to claim it tastes different.

If we want to experience heat what color do we think of? If you said, red. You are correct.

When we see a word that is bolded in a sentence our eye natural is drawn to the word.

For dull colors, we are drawn away from them, like greys and dark browns and even some navy blues.

Burgundy as a color tends to be opulence and rich in color.

Seasons

Should your logo represent a season? Think about these facts:

Springtime: The pallet of colors are pastels and light shades, often paired with bright green. They are delicate and feminine.

Summer: Stick to bright shades of primary colors.

Fall: Brown is the first color that comes to mind then yellow, orange, green. Anything that represents nature.

Winter: Heck we even have a name for one of the colors, Winter White. Along with white, we include black and blue.

 

Wrap it up.

With all this shared, how do you go about choosing what colors we should use for your logo? First, use this as a guide but not gospel. Your logo, when ready, will tell you what colors to use. Play with a variety of colors and hues of colors. I always do a flash test. What is that, you say? I hang the logos on the wall, turn my back and walk away from them. I then turn around and quickly look at them. What will happen is my eye will catch on of them or maybe two. It is usually in that moment that the right logo emerges from the choices.

Unless you are the NBC Peacock, limit your colors to at the most three. This is a logo and not meant to be distracted by color.

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Sourced from: http://changingminds.org/disciplines/communication/color_effect.htm