Introduction:-
Colors form an integral part of the world we live in. And more often than not, our feelings, emotions and even taste can be validated with colors! According to an article written by Charles Spence in BioMed Central 2015, five color-taste studies were conducted and their results indicate some startling results. For example, the colors black, purple and violet are widely associated with bitterness. White and blue is associated with the salty sea. Yellow and green represent a sour taste, because of its obvious recall to limes and lemons. Sweet is linked to pink or red.
Truth be told, colors can have a major influence on people’s purchase decisions. Most brands are associated with one or more colors; organizations have embraced color psychology as a major driver in their branding strategy. Why? Because people are drawn to certain colors for certain reasons and they carry associations with objects and tend to feel them.
As designers, we need to pay detailed attention to the colors we choose while designing a brand. Colour creates contrast, hierarchy, balance & rhythm. Choosing the right color palette is really important as it not only creates interest but also creates an emotional or subconscious connect with the people.
Understanding colors is an understanding product
Research indicates that 85% of the decision made by individuals towards choosing a product was based on colors only. Colors carry an emotional value; each color emotes different feelings and perceptions; these aren't general emotions that are associated with it but the whole nature itself is built around it and perceived in a psychological aspect. For example:
- Red communicates energy, power, and passion
- Green communicates ambition, growth, freshness, and safety
- Blue communicates tranquility, confidence, and intelligence
- Yellow communicates happiness, intellect, and energy
- Black communicates power, elegance, and mystery
- White communicates cleanliness, purity, and perfection
Question and Considerations before choosing a Colour palette
Before I get to explaining how to pick colors and go on to explaining the color wheel, let’s be clear about a few fundamental questions that we should ask ourselves even before jumping on to the branding elements of the product. The questions would give you a sense of direction and make life simpler:
Brand New Product: Fresh branding might require you to understand the reasoning and the emotional connect of the brand. It will give you much-needed freedom to chose and play with your colors, unlike the defined products. I generally prefer to choose either monochromatic or complementary as they create more emotional value and a sense of purpose.Am I designing for a brand new product or an established brand?
Defined product: One should understand the product and the guidelines it comes with. There might be many limitations or directions that we need to follow. So get acquainted with it. For example, Google or Microsoft has strict guidelines. In such cases, I choose Analogous/ Triadic palette as they allow me to stick to the prominent brand color while allowing me to play with the other colors from the wheel as an accent. It is like choosing a group of friendly neighbors to build a harmonious product.
Do I understand the product?
What is the intent of the product? What does it want to communicate? What problem does it want to solve? Who will use this product? These questions will lead us to shortlist the primary and secondary colors of the product.
Do I understand the users well?
Who are the users we are targeting? What are there behavioral graphs? What their mental models like? How tech-savvy are they? What region do they belong to? What is their culture? Everything comes into play when you are deciding on the brand colors. Ask as many relevant questions as possible.
Am I accommodating the W3C principle?
Choosing a palette also involves accessibility as one of the major challenges for a product designer. As a designer, you must ensure that the product is accessible by all sets of color vision deficiency personas. Adding to that, textual contrast check is really important which needs to be done before adding any colored text over any background color. This allows us in covering the CVD people by providing them with an accessible product.
How do I choose the colors?
Finally, let’s decode the different sets of colors and principles that will always make life easier as designers. I always look up to the nature of the product when it comes to choosing colors but before you go overboard looking for inspiration you have to understand the basics of the color wheel. I follow Colour theory 101; there are many diverse ways of picking color sets that work together. I pick the combination best suited for me ranging from those that are easy to use till difficult to use. I’ll explain this further below:
Complementary -Easy to use
As the name suggests, these colors are placed adjacent to each other in the color wheel. They complement each other perfectly. This color scheme works best for brands that are trying to communicate reliability and a sense of balance. It’s like the color blue says ‘you are beautiful’ to the color orange, which complements its attributes, and vice versa.
RunAdam or Paytm Money are good examples of the brands with complementary colors.
Monochromatic -Easy to use
These colors share the hues and tones of a base color. When you use shades of the same color, the ideal notion behind this is that it creates harmony and natural sync. Monochromatic color sets are easy to remember since the user can associate these shades with one another and still can remember what brand or product it is.
The word analogous means ‘comparable’. By virtue of this, analogous colors refer to any set of colors on the color wheel that are immediately adjacent, ie, three colors left or right from the one of your choosing. As a set, these four colors will be considered as analogous colors. Analogous colors are preferred when there is a need to create a sense of harmony and contentment for brand design.
Paypal, Mastercard are good examples of brands with analogous colors.
Triadic - You can try
This method is akin to choosing colors that are evenly spaced in an equilateral triangle. These colors are selected from the wheel in such a way that they provide high contrast and rich vibrancy in design. How do we do this? By picking colors, (to the left or right) that are equally spaced from one another on the color wheel. For example, if you pick a specific color on the wheel, you can go ahead and pick a color that is three colors away on either side. These contrasting colors make for an effective, yet tough to create a palette.
Mozilla and Burger King are good examples of the brands with triadic colors.
Triadic - Are you brave enough?
This is a four-color structure evenly spaced on the color wheel. This scheme is best suitable if you want to create an accent with colors, ie, you choose one dominant color and three accents supporting it. This color scheme is similar to triadic, which creates a vibrant and strong palette but is tough to handle.
Google & Microsoft is a good example of a Tetradic color scheme
My favorite tools:-
My suggestions towards tools that can be used to choose your palette:
Coolors.co - My favorite tool it's super easy to use and it can show you multiple analogous variations of a single hue.
Canva Colour wheel - This is my handy tool towards choosing the type of combination that I want to pick I'll be able to generate my combinations. I use the Canva Colour wheel to build my palette.
Hope this helps you in building a beautiful palette for your product, Happy branding!
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