Colour Psychology In Your Brand Logo

Creating the perfect brand logo can be a long process: after all, logos are an essential part of your business's branding, so you need to make sure you get yours right. Brand logos are often the first thing that website visitors and potential leads notice about your company, so you must take the time to craft the perfect logo and work with creative experts who can turn your ideas into a beautiful, instantly recognisable logo.

One of the most significant considerations you'll have to take into account is the colour of your logo. Colour is what makes a logo stand out from the rest, so you need to find a bold and inventive set of colours for your logo that will draw potential customers in, and that will represent your brand correctly.

Your brand logo's colour will also impact every other aspect of your branding; your website design, printed literature and more will need to reflect your logo's colours. So, in effect, the colours you choose for your business's logo will have an impact on your entire branding strategy. That's a lot of pressure to put on one, seemingly insignificant decision.

At Kopa Marketing, we understand how hard it can be to find the right logo and colours for your business, which is why we've explored the world of colour psychology and how you can use it to influence this vital choice.

What Is Colour Psychology?

Colour psychology is the effect that seeing certain colours has on human psychology. It is deeply personal, as in some cases, colours can represent specific events or be associated with special memories. However, there are general emotions and feelings that most people associate with specific colours, so logo designers and branding experts can make an informed decision when picking a colour or shade. The psychology of colours allows companies to create a branding strategy, logo and website that will embody their vision and become a physical representation of what they stand for and what they can offer to potential clients.

What Does Each Colour Represent?

Every colour on the spectrum represents a different emotion and elicits a distinct response. Often, the emotions that the colours represent connect to common items; for example, many people associate red with fire and green with nature.

Here's what all of the most common colours represent:

• Black: A shade, rather than an actual colour, black is often connected to power, opulence, mystery and darkness. When opposed with white, its opposite, many people consider black to represent evil, as opposed to white's goodness
• White: Another shade, white induces thoughts of purity, cleanliness, celestial elegance and goodness
• Grey: A combination of the two shades mentioned above, grey has many connotations depending on its shade. In general, grey represents neutrality and plainness. Darker grey can remind people of industrial spaces and utility, while lighter grey and greige, a combination of grey and beige, can remind people of detachment
• Brown: A rustic colour, brown invokes memories of times spent in nature, as well as stability and solidarity. It can also be considered dull to some people
• Red: Red is a bold, physical colour, strongly linked with fire, passion, anger, love and romance

• Blue: Blue represents calm, serenity and relaxation. It is also the colour of confidence and determination
• Orange: Bold and bright, orange represents vibrancy, confidence, happiness and excitement
• Yellow: A cheerful and playful colour, yellow is often associated with joy, happiness and energy
• Green: As a prominent colour in the natural world, in psychology, green is linked to growth, fertility, nature, freshness and healing
• Pink: Often associated with love, pink can also evoke memories of childhood and thoughts of femininity
• Purple: In the mind, many people associate purple with royalty and luxury, as well as mystery
• Silver: The colour silver often represents justice and ageing gracefully. More metallic than plain grey, silver often invokes memories of jewellery, beauty and weddings
• Gold: Psychologically, gold is an organic colour that represents warmth, sunshine, wisdom and intelligence. It can also have religious connotations and emotional links to enlightenment

Do Colour Shades Influence Psychology?

Each colour comes in a wide variety of different shades, and each shade means something different. For example, if you take pink, a dark shade could remind people of blood, cherries, freshness and life. However, a pastel pink could invoke thoughts of childhood, femininity and cuteness. As such, the shade is just as crucial for your brand logo as the colour you choose. You need to consider both the shade and the overall colour, and you could even use multiple shades to reinforce your branding and drive home your business's message.

How Does Colour Affect Consumer Behaviour?

When you're choosing a colour for your brand logo, you need to find one that will represent your business and create the right first impression.

Colour psychology can influence everything from a person's mood through to their behaviour. The emotions and ideas that colours can invoke can affect the choices that consumers make.

For example, if your brand offers washing detergent, then including white in your logo could help you to associate your brand with cleanliness, with pale green helping to make potential buyers think of freshness.

However, grey or brown could make customers think of dirt and mud, making them less likely to choose your washing liquid product. Purple could make the product appear luxurious and worth paying more money for, while yellow will make consumers think of freshness and natural cleaning. As this example highlights, colour psychology makes a subtle difference to the appearance of your brand logo, but it can have a significant influence on consumer behaviour and brand authority.

Consumers might struggle to articulate why they chose a product that incorporated different colours, so brand logo designers sometimes overlook colour psychology, but at Kopa Marketing, we understand its importance. We incorporate it into every logo we design, and every website we create for our clients, to help them achieve their business goals.

How Can You Incorporate Colour Psychology Into Your Logo Design?

When we're designing logos, the experts at Kopa Marketing create multiple versions of the same logo, with each one featuring different colours and shade. The colours are chosen based on what we know of our client, and the image they want their logo to present of their brand and offering.  We then take the time to review each option and narrow down our choices, using colour psychology to represent our client's brand correctly. Using colour psychology, we can turn a set of words that our clients give us into the perfect logo that communicates their brand to their potential customers before they even start working with them.

If you're designing your company's logo in-house, then you should use this blog post to learn colour psychology and what every colour means, then try to find colours that represent what your brand wants to say to potential clients.  Then you should mock-up multiple versions of your brand logo design, each one containing different colours, combinations and shades. Show these options to creative team members and business stakeholders, to gauge what they feel about each logo design and find the perfect colours to represent your brand. You could even consider hosting a focus group to see what potential clients and people who've never heard of your brand think of your brand logo ideas. Once you've gathered all of this data, you can finesse your idea and create the perfect logo to represent your brand and communicate its values to the world.

What Other Considerations Do You Need To Think Of When Designing A Brand Logo?

Every aspect of your brand logo will influence your decision, but some vital factors to consider are:

1. Shape: the shape of your logo can elicit a different response. For example, spikey shapes often evoke feelings of threat and dynamism, while smooth shapes often make people think of calmness

• Size: Your logo needs to be clear and recognisable no matter what size it is, so you'll need to make sure that it is clear and that your brand logo size fits in with your website design
• Font: If your logo has words on it, then you'll need to find the perfect font. Seek out a clear, professional font that represents your brand. For continuity, you'll need to include your font on your website, and even on any animated video marketing content that you create, so you must find one that will accurately represent your brand
• Complexity: Trying to convey a complicated message with your brand logo is unnecessary. Your brand logo needs to be recognisable and unique, but it should only give a general overview of your company. You can then reinforce this with the rest of your branding and marketing strategy. As such, you should try to keep the design of your logo simple: too complicated, and it might confuse potential customers, and the message might get lost
• Individuality: Your logo will become the pictorial representation of your brand's identity, so it must be completely unique. If you choose a logo that looks similar to another brand's design, then you could find that customers get confused and your brand logo doesn't make a positive impact on your business

If you're interested in learning more about colour psychology and how you can incorporate it into your business branding, then get in touch with Kopa Marketing. We specialise in logo design, website design, and overall branding and digital marketing support, so whatever you need to grow your business, we can help.

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