- If I have these two mugs in front of me,
the color highly impacts my instant decision to reach
for one over the other.
Now, imagine this was your brand, logo, product, or website.
Crazy, right?
90% of consumers judge a brand or design just by its color
and 85% pick one brand over the other because of, well,
you guessed it, color.
Picking the wrong color palette
is more than just a design faux pa,
it might send your customers or audience packing.
It's essential to be on top of your color game.
Join me as we dive into color theory
and check out how I use all of this information
to start the color palette for my own personal brand.
But, first thing is first,
does color really have this persuasive power?
Yes, colors directly impact parts of the brain responsible
for releasing a number of hormones that control many aspects
of the body's self-regulation
such as temperature, sleep, hunger, and much more.
The impact of color is real
but the traditional understanding of color, psychology
and marketing that you might have heard before
as a simple association of colors to specific emotions.
For example, blue is calming have been debated
and debunked by many studies.
And when it comes to picking the colors for your brand,
thinking of a consumer's reaction to color appropriateness
is far more impactful than the individual color itself.
Back to my mug example.
Instead of trying to evoke a generic emotion,
it's far more impactful to think
which color best fit my product.
Ultimately, you want to evoke an association
between the color and product that feels appropriate
to your audience at first glance.
But, before we start answering those questions,
let's dive into color theory.
A framework that helps us understand
and utilize colors effectively,
it focuses on the relationships between colors,
their impacts and how they can be combined harmoniously.
Let's look at the backbone of color theory, color harmonies.
Color harmonies are combinations of colors
that work well together
and create a sense of balance and unity.
Let's go over some common color harmonies.
Complimentary, colors opposite of each other
on the color wheel.
Let's look at a brand that uses this combination.
FedEx's color palette uses purple and orange,
which are complimentary colors.
This combination creates a vibrant and dynamic effect,
which is an appropriate association
with the company's emphasis on speed and reliability
in its delivery services.
We also have analogous, colors adjacent to each other
on the color wheel.
The Spotify colors feature shades of green,
creating a cohesive and visually appealing look.
The analogous color screen contributes
to the branch fresh and modern image.
The Instagram logo uses a gradient that transitions
from pink to orange to yellow, all analogous colors.
This combination creates a warm, vibrant, inviting
instantly recognizable visual identity.
Lastly, we have triadic.
These colors are evenly spaced around the color wheel.
The Google colors feature blue, red, yellow, and green
forming a triadic color scheme
when considering the combination of blue, red, and yellow.
The addition of green,
even though not a part of the triadic scheme
enhances the visual interest and creates a distinctive look.
The next big piece of color theory is the color wheel.
Color wheel represents the full spectrum of colors
and is the foundation of color theory.
We have primary, secondary and tertiary colors,
all of which create visual harmony.
Primary colors are the most basic colors
that cannot be created by mixing other colors.
They serve as the foundation for all other colors
in the color spectrum.
The three primary colors are red, green, and blue.
Secondary colors are created by mixing equal parts
of two primary colors, cyan, green and blue,
magenta, red and blue, and yellow, red and green.
Tertiary colors are created by mixing equal parts
of primary and adjacent secondary colors on the color wheel.
These colors are often considered in-between shades
bridging the gap between primary and secondary colors
and colors are also divided into warm and cool tones.
Hold on, you may be asking yourself right now,
where can I find black and white in the color wheel?
Well, you can't.
Black and white are not technically considered colors
because they don't have a hue.
Hue means pure color without any black or white.
Black and white when added to colors affect its brightness,
adding white will make a brighter tone
and adding black will produce a much darker tone.
That's very useful, especially as you create
the appropriate contrast between colors.
Shades of black and white are an essential part
of your color palette,
and many brands use only black and white
in their brand colors.
To recap key elements that can help guide
your color decisions are the color wheel, color harmony,
and psychology of color.
Now it's time to choose the colors for my personal brand
and you can follow through
and maybe start building a color palette
for your business or personal brand as well.
But I need to answer some questions
before I run to that color wheel.
What am I selling?
As a content creator, I'm selling content
to be more specific, marketing educational content.
Who is my target audience?
We can get very specific here
but I'll simplify for this exercise.
My target audience are young
and mid-career marketing professionals at any skill level
looking to learn a new tool
or technique to improve their work.
I'll use Adobe color for this research.
I'll select three brands that align
with my target audience and product as a baseline,
Domestica, YouTube, and Skillshare.
Red is a dominant color in these examples
and when thinking of my primary color,
I could choose an opposing color to differentiate myself
or select a shade of red
to stay close to these large brands.
You can get much more in depth here, but for now
these are the answers I'll use to build my color palette.
I'm gonna build a simple five color palette
using the 60/30/10 rule,
which means my primary color is used on 60% of the designs
and two other colors are used for 30 and 10%.
And in addition, I'll add a shade
of white and black to complete the palette.
I'll build my color palette on Adobe color
which is a free tool.
I'll click on create then color wheel.
I'll select custom for the color wheel settings
and I'm going to select HSB for the color mode.
So my color controls will be hue, saturation and brightness.
I'll first decide on my primary color.
The primary color is the dominant color
that sets the overall tone and mood
for a design or visual element.
This will be the most frequently used color
in my brand palette and will be the foundation
for all the other colors.
I need to choose carefully as it will significantly impact
the visual aesthetics and the viewer's perception
of the overall design.
Because I really wanna lean into color appropriateness,
I learned from research colors commonly used
by media brands and creators.
I'll select a shade of red as my primary color to stay close
to the colors used by content brands.
Now, for my secondary colors to distinguish my brand,
I'll use a complimentary color harmony and use that contrast
from opposing colors to differentiate my brand.
And another cool thing about this tool
is that it already has color harmony settings.
Now that I have my primary and secondary colors,
I'll adjust the brightness and saturation.
As I adjust my colors,
I also need to consider color contrast
between hues, brightness and saturation.
Color contrast highly impacts the accessibility
of your website and user experience.
A really important step in building your color palette
is checking color contrast.
So now that I have my color palette's first draft,
I'll check for accessibility
and Adobe color has tools for that.
First I'll check for colorblindness.
Great, it's safe for colorblindness.
Now I'll check for color contrast.
I'll add my shade of white for texts
and my primary red as background and check.
So this combination fails For the smaller text,
I could use a different color for small text
or change my primary color, which is what I'll do.
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I'll apply the suggestion and change the colors
on my palette and adjust my other secondary color
so I still have a brighter red, just not as my primary color
because it's not a good choice for accessibility.
Before I commit to my palette,
I'm gonna use a free template on Canva
to test these colors together in a design.
I'll search for content creator templates
and select the free filter.
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I'll use this one, click on customize
and now add my brand colors.
So here, the primary color will be used as a background.
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And I'll use my shade of white for the main text.
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And my secondary color for the accent graphics.
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Let me add my picture here
and let's see how these colors work together.
This is the first draft for the color palette
for my personal brand
and I think I'm getting somewhere with my brand colors.
You'll continue to evolve your color palette,
add colors to it, but the first step
is to start defining the core colors in your palette.
Your color palette is just one element
of your brand identity.
Once you build more of those elements,
you can start thinking of your brand style guide next,
and we have a video to help with that.
If you found this video helpful,
please give it a thumbs up and don't forget
to hit that subscribe button to stay updated
with more branding tips and marketing insights.
Share with us down in the comments below
what colors you chose for your personal brand
and why you made those choices.
Thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next video.
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