One of the top questions I get regularly is “how do I pick a color palette” for my business. Here I have three tips for picking a color palette and two reasons why color is good for business.
Why you need it:
Reason 1: Color helps a business get remembered. People remember colors more than anything else! If your potential client or referral partner remembers you more easily, they are more likely to refer you.
Reason 2: Colors can affect people’s mood. Every wonder why so many fast food restaurants use a color combination of red and yellow? It’s because that combo of colors makes people feel hungry and hungry people tend to buy food creating more sales for the restaurant.
How you Choose it:
There’s no right way to choose a color palette and every designer has their own methods, the ones I’m sharing here just happen to be the ones that I feel are easiest
Method 1: You can use a color you really like as your main color and build a palette around it using the color wheel. A couple of ways to use the color wheel for these accent colors are to choose colors on either side of your selected color. You can also choose colors that are lighter and darker versions of your selected main color. This is the method I used to pick my brand colors. I knew purple was a given as my main color and then I decided on an additional lighter shade of purple as an accent along with a neutral color, black.
Method 2: You can use the colors from a pattern or photograph you really like. It can be a photo from nature, a cool urban scene, anything really. This method couldn’t be simpler to use – Choose a main color and a couple of accent colors including a neutral color like white, gray, black, or brown from your photograph or pattern. True story, I used the colors from the patterned pillows my now husband had on his sofa to help me choose our wedding colors of orange, blue and brown because I wanted to pick something we’d both like and I knew we both liked those pillows.
Method 3: Choose a couple of colors based on color psychology and then pair it with a neutral color like black, white or brown. Every color has a secret meaning. For example, blue is the one of the most popular logo colors because it helps people feel relaxed!
Color psychology is one of my favorite things to share with people and I even wrote a 26-page e-book explaining what each color means and how you can best design with them. It’s available here. I highly recommend getting a copy if you want to learn how to unlock the secrets of color to enhance your designs even on a template editor.
Now you know a few easy ways to choose a color palette for your business! No matter which method you choose, you’ll end up with colors that you (and your ideal client) will love!