90 seconds.
That’s all it takes for a person to evaluate your product online.
Up to 90% of that time is spent assessing color alone.
Get ready to see colors in a new light in today’s video about
why color matters in ecommerce.
In the next couple of minutes, we’ll cover color theory, color psychology,
and practical ways to use color in your ecommerce business.
Ecommerce is a rapidly growing industry.
We see more online stores opening up, offering great products.
The competition seems hard to beat.
But if you look at the situation from another perspective,
competition creates innovation, which generates new ideas
to win customers' attention within those 90 seconds.
One of the ways to do that is to experiment with the right color combinations.
Color in ecommerce is used to communicate what the product is about,
draw attention,
set a mood,
and influence emotions and perceptions.
Color also has a significant impact on the way a brand is viewed by the public.
With that in mind, you need to pay attention
to your choice of colors not only in your designs,
but also in your store and marketing materials as well.
That's where color theory becomes useful.
Essentially, it’s the science and art of colors
that looks at how we perceive, mix, and apply them.
The theory has undergone some major changes.
It originated back in Ancient Greece, where it was proposed by a Greek philosopher Aristotle.
He believed that all colors originate from white and black,
and assigned them to the four elements of nature.
Later in the seventeenth century, the theory was perfected by Sir Isaac Newton.
By conducting a series of experiments with light passing through a prism,
he was able to identify seven colors,
which he compared to the seven notes of the musical scale.
This led to the creation of the color wheel,
which allowed people to see and understand relationships between colors.
The traditional color wheel has 12 colors.
There are three primary colors— red, yellow, and blue,
and these can be used to create secondary colors—orange, green, and violet.
By mixing primary and secondary colors we get tertiary colors.
By doing some more mixing we end up with different tints, shades, and tones.
The number of possible variations exceeds millions
and that's where color harmony techniques come in to maintain order.
They juxtapose colors in a way that's attractive to the eye.
There are many ways to combine colors,
but some techniques are used more often than others:
Monochromatic: variations of a single color.
Analogous: hues that are next to each other on the color wheel.
Complementary: opposites on the color wheel, like blue and orange.
Split-complementary: any color on the color wheel
and two that flank its complementary color.
Triadic: any three colors that are evenly spaced on the wheel.
When choosing a color palette, it's important to know what feelings certain colors create.
Let’s take the Pantone Color of the Year 2019, Living Coral, as an example.
You have probably seen variations of this color
used in many products in retail and other industries.
Pantone, Inc. is the global authority that creates and sets standards for color worldwide.
They’ve been influencing product development
and purchasing decisions in many industries for the past 20 years.
Each year Pantone releases a new color that throughout extensive research
has been identified as dominating global culture with its unique mood and attitude.
Living Coral is described as a vibrant and hopeful, nurturing color
present both in our environment and social media
that welcomes and encourages lighthearted activity.
It's a good starting point to think about what colors are popular,
but it should always come second to what your brand is about
and what the main aesthetic is.
It should always be in service to the kind of design choices you make.
One of the big reasons these kinds of colors, like coral
and other pastels are prevailing right now is because
they go in tandem with the '80s and '90s vintage designs and aesthetic.
It's a smaller part of a bigger theme.
If your brand fits in with that,
then it will fit in with these colos to varying degrees.
With that in mind, let's take a look at some other colors and their use in product design.
Red: confidence, power, energy, passion.
Places, where red is used in the design bring immediate attention.
For this reason, red is often used as an accent color.
It’s perfect to draw the customer’s attention to a particular product
or a banner announcing a limited sale.
However, it can also be used as the main color, as we see on this product.
In this case, it is important to be aware that the design will be very intense.
Yellow.
This color is generally associated with positivity, warmth, joy, and happiness.
In design, saturated yellow is very effective for attracting attention (just like red),
whereas light yellows give a calm feeling of happiness.
Dark yellows and gold yellows look antique and can be used in designs
to transfer the sense of permanence.
Blue: trustworthiness, loyalty, confidence, calmness.
This color is widely favored by companies in their branding,
just for those associations alone.
In design, the variety of shades and hues of blue can deliver different meanings.
Light blues often cause relaxed and calming feelings,
whereas bright blues can be energizing and refreshing.
Dark blues, like navy, are suitable for designs
where strength and reliability are important.
It is useful to remember that blue is a cool color
and can also be associated with distance and sadness.
That covers our primary colors, next let’s take a look at some other examples
that are often seen in print-on-demand designs.
Green: health, growth, abundance, money.
Green is the color of nature and is connected to the environment.
It can easily grab attention.
It has a balancing and harmonizing effect and for this reason,
it is very appropriate for designs related to wealth, renewal, and nature.
Saturated greens are energizing and vibrant,
while lighter greens mostly give off calmness and peacefulness.
Purple: royalty, sophistication, mystery, wisdom.
Historically, purple is linked to royalty and it retains a feeling of luxury even today.
It mixes the energy of red and blue and combines the best of both.
Dark tones can also be uplifting and trigger creativity,
while lighter purples cause more calm and romantic feelings.
Black has various meanings.
It can be associated with tragedy.
However, it can also be modern, serious, and sophisticated.
The feeling depends on the design and with which colors black goes with.
As black is monochrome, it matches well with any other color,
so it’s great for the background
or to accent specific parts of the design.
White: pureness, nobleness, softness, virtuousness.
White accents other colors around it,
making it a popular choice for a secondary color.
However, it can also be used to grab attention for objects on colorful backgrounds.
Just like black, it can work well with any other color.
White is also a popular color for t-shirts.
The classic white tee is the most versatile piece of clothing
that's easy to use in different outfits.
A white t-shirt with a colorful print
will focus the customer's attention on the design, not the shirt itself.
Whenever you’re working on your next project that involves color, always do market research.
Not only will you find inspiration,
but you will also learn important data about your target audience.
For example, colors may have different effects on people depending on age, gender, or culture.
Generally, children tend to choose saturated colors, whereas adults like plain colors.
You need to consider if there are any exceptions
to color symbolism in countries that you’re targeting.
Take the color white, for example.
In Western countries it associates with peace and elegance,
while in some Asian countries it symbolizes death and bad luck.
All of the samples you’ve seen just now were made by our Graphic Design Team.
Check out their page on Instagram for more inspiring work.
Speaking of Instagram,
this is the place you’re most likely using to promote your clothing line.
The Instagram feed is the first thing a visitor sees when they land on a new profile,
so it’s important to make a good impression.
Instagram has become a powerhouse for brand marketing.
You want to stand out to get noticed.
And now that you've refreshed your knowledge
about the meaning and mood behind some colors, you can start experimenting.
But remember, while you strive for uniqueness,
you should also maintain consistency on your Instagram page.
Apart from having a neat grid,
the filters or LUTs that you apply to your pictures in post
should have a consistent color composition
and convey the same aesthetic as your brand colors.
Let’s take our Instagram page for example.
We use similar and compatible colors, and in our compositions.
The subjects stand out from the plain background due to colorful accents.
This aesthetic goes beyond our Instagram page and straight to our home page.
You want to make sure that your brand is represented equally on all platforms.
So for example, when your customer, impressed by the visuals from your Instagram page,
enters your store’s landing page,
they should be greeted with the same color aesthetic.
And with that, we’re moving on to the next part of the video.
How to use color for the best user experience.
Stick to your branding.
If you’re working with an established brand, you probably have a brand color palette.
You can’t get too creative with the brand colors
because you’ll deviate from brand guidelines and recognition.
Try to use brand colors for user interface elements
that make the structure of your design: headers, footers, menus.
As you can see in the following example,
we use our brand colors for the UI elements and graphics.
Limit your color palette.
UI color scheme contains the following groups of colors:
primary and secondary (UI base colors),
accent colors (buttons or progress bars),
neutrals (text and background)
and semantic colors (notifications, error messages).
Applying color to design has a lot to do with balance.
Generally, the more colors you use, the harder it is to achieve balance.
That’s why it’s recommended to use a limited number of colors in a scheme.
Ideally, 1–3 primaries that represent your brand and a sufficient number of accent colors.
Build visual hierarchy.
Visual hierarchy organizes UI components so that the brain can distinguish objects
based on their physical differences, such as size, color, contrast, and style.
Color serves as an effective tool for the impact with bold colors such as red,
orange, and black that can easily draw attention.
On the other hand, there are "soft" colors, like white and cream
that work better as a background.
Use interactive colors.
Interactive colors are colors that we use for interactive elements: buttons, links,
and other UI controls that users can click or touch.
Lighter and darker color shades can help you convey different states for your UI elements.
Color can be a helpful tool for your users to find their way.
It’s a good idea to use the same color for links and buttons.
By doing that, you help your users recognize interactive elements.
Test your work.
The best way to create an environment with easy navigation is to user test it.
You need to know what their goals are that motivate them to use your product.
Start by doing user research, analyze your target audience, and research the competition.
This data will determine what kind of content drives your product
so you can design accordingly.
Test out your UI color assumptions with real users
to observe what they need and want from your UI.
Some of the most popular ecommerce platforms offer premade store themes.
I recommend investing your time to customize them.
Even the slightest change will already bring individuality to your store and,
more importantly match your brand aesthetic.
If you find yourself struggling with finding the right color combination
and navigating through the wheel doesn't bring you any results,
you can always check out online color palette generators, like Coolors.
The web app is free and you can create palettes based on your favorite colors.
The website includes a quick tutorial that’ll get you started in seconds.
You can also upload your photos
and the app will create a palette based on the colors in the image.
I hope this video helps you on your journey to build and improve your ecommerce business.
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The content we create exists solely to help you achieve new heights.
Thanks for watching and until next time!