Picking your company colours

[Excel Expert]

How do you pick the colours for your branding?

I'm rebranding myself as Carl Nixon rather than "The Excel Expert" because what I do goes beyond Excel and in to other areas. As "The Excel Expert" the colours were easy, everything was green to tie in with the Excel icon. Now I'm free of that I'm stumped.

I've been playing with colour wheels and applying the results to a mock up on Photoshop but nothing gels as being the colour scheme for me. Each scheme looks great and the colours all go together but there is a missing piece of the jigsaw.

Are the meanings to colours in your brands or were they just a group of colours looked good?

 

[deniser]

I picked colours that are fairly neutral but that I personally like together.

There are general guidelines for website colours - I assume a website is involved - about which colours to pick or not to pick depending on your audience and what you want them to do when they get there.

 

[Excel Expert]

Yep, there is a website and it is the main focus of all my marketing. It will be even more important once it is up and running.

Its those guidelines that I'm after. Do I pick blue over green? or do I go for in your face yellows and reds etc.

If anyone has any links to articles like that it would be a massive help

 

[That Bates Girl]

I've got loads of links, I'll dig some out for you. Probably be tomorrow at the earliest though.

Lyds

 

[Excel Expert]

Thanks Lyds, that would be great - No hurry

 

[Newchodge]

Whatever you go for do not use black type on a blue background. It is illegible.

 

[DazRave]

@Excel Expert - If your re-branding as yourself... Make it reflect yourself too?

Choose your favourite colour, design a neutral coloured website and use your favourite colour to then cherry pick and highlight certain areas of the design.

Here's an example: http://mannatstudio.com/arther/ (granted, it's a CV kind of website but you get my point!)

 

[Excel Expert]

Newchodge - One of the aspects I have already decided upon is readability and cleanliness of design. So no blue on black.

DazRave - That layout is very, very similar in style to what I have decided I want. Very clean and flat. My current one is very cluttered and not what I set out to achieve.

The only problem is I don't have a favourite colour. I don't have an artistic bone in my body so a colour is just a colour to me. My Mrs on the other hand, can spend all day picking from 50 shades of a paint colour that all look identical to me. Hence me looking for guidelines on what different colours mean.

 

[DazRave]

Why don't you ask her what her favourite colour is then? haha.

It really isn't as important as you think (at this level anyway), so long as you don't put conflicting colours together then it's fine! There's no reason you can't stick to the Excel lime green type colour and still offer other services!

 

[Excel Expert]

To get to the stage where the Mrs narrows it down to 50 shades of the same colour can take days even weeks. It is a process I avoid getting involved in all costs - it has helped keep our relationship and me alive

 

[That Bates Girl]

When we moved into our house we painted all the (interior) walls white, as we were going to be putting up a lot of framed art.

It's no exaggeration to say that I spent a week looking at a wall with 20 different shades of white painted on it before I made my decision.

Lyds

 

[Excel Expert]

LOL, I know I'm totally uneducated in things like this but I see no sense in that. During the day, wouldn't all those shades appear on your walls anyway due to the changing light?

 

[That Bates Girl]

Yes, but the changing light would affect each of the different shades in a different way - hence the week of looking at it.

When you're buying enough paint to cover 3 floors of high-ceilinged terrace, it's worth taking the time to get it right.



Lyds

P.S. In case anyone is the slightest bit interested, we eventually went with a shade called porcelain doll from the dulux classics range. The label on the tin looked ever so slightly pinky, but on the wall it's has a delicate suggestion of blue/grey.

 

[ifra]

soft colours would be better. they surely have a good effect on one's eye

 

[That Bates Girl]

Some resources:

Before&After magazine has a useful download on picking colours. They've got lots of other really useful practical design stuff too. I recommend reading it.

The Brand New blog has some great stuff for inspiration. And I recommend reading the comments too (not something you'll often hear me say) - I've picked up a lot of understanding from seeing professional designers pick apart other designers work.

Here's a great infographic, on a logo design blog, about the psychology of colours used in logo design.

And finally, a pretty good article about rgb vs cmyk colour profiles, and why you can't print using the same colours you can use on a screen.

Lyds

 

[Nuno]

I would consider keeping the Excel green on the new Carl Nixon logo as this gives a link to your past, (especially for infrequent returning clients who will see at a glance it's still Carl the Excel-man, i.e. they are on the right website), and won't tie you to Excel only services.
Let the new logo/branding define your new range of services, but let the colour link the old to the new.

 

[Excel Expert]

Thanks a lot Lyds, I really appreciate it - I will be working through that little lot this evening.

Very interesting point Nuno and not one I had really considered. I shall keep my thinking cap on a bit longer

 

[SwindonSteve]

Some resources:

Before&After magazine has a useful download on picking colours. They've got lots of other really useful practical design stuff too. I recommend reading it.

The Brand New blog has some great stuff for inspiration. And I recommend reading the comments too (not something you'll often hear me say) - I've picked up a lot of understanding from seeing professional designers pick apart other designers work.

Here's a great infographic, on a logo design blog, about the psychology of colours used in logo design.

And finally, a pretty good article about rgb vs cmyk colour profiles, and why you can't print using the same colours you can use on a screen.

Lyds

That's interesting info. There should be some kind of blog post about the psychology of colours reaching your inbox soon...

 

[Robert_Lee]

It is indeed a very interesting thread and we can go very deep in order to learn more about the psychology that stands behind each colour and every specific colour scheme. For example, I believe we all know blue is the colour for the cold, calm scenes and, in my opinion, it is a great background choice for some travel based websites.

 

[BustersDogs]

When I had my new logo done I chose what key words I wanted it to say to people, looked up what colours 'meant' and used those to help design the logo. I wanted RED for the rosette on my dog as that's FIRST PRIZE! But orange said more what I wanted it to say - and as Autumn is my favourite season I love the colours (and picked out my living room paint colours from a painting of an autumn scene) so that worked very well for us. (Fun, social, cheerful, confident). The brown in the log gives us staying power, reliability and dependability. The keyword brief to the designer was "Reliable, approachable, knowledgeable and have the logo express 'happiness' (of dogs, owners, and customers)"

 

[deniser]

I like this in the link Lyds posted

 

[That Bates Girl]

It's worth pointing out that for all the talk of different colours having different 'meanings' in different cultures, and colour being totally personal and subjective - colour doesn't actually really exist.

What we perceive as colour is the visible light that is reflected (i.e. not absorbed) by a physical object, or given off by a light source (like a computer screen or tv). Different colours have different wavelengths, and different wavelengths affect the human brain in different ways.

Green is the colour of plants and nature, so it's no surprise that we've evolved eyes that treat light on that wavelength as neutral.

Red and yellow light has a longer wavelength than green, which makes red and yellow (and orange) stimulating colours to look at. Blue and violet light has a shorter wavelength, which means that they are less stimulating for the human brain.

There's more here

Lyds

 

[fisicx]

Loads of great resources from Lyds but (and a very important but) branding is not about colours. Take nike for example. The swoosh is the brand people recognise not the colour, you can get their products in just about any colour you want.

So my suggestion is to use the colours you already have and just change the words in your logo. My current testing shows that removing almost all colours and the logo actually improves things. Over the years I've had red, green, orange, blue, brown and purple themes. Made no difference whatsoever (apart from green which nobody liked).

Launch your site with the new name and don't fret over the colours because it really doesn't matter.

Note also: colour perception is a bit of a luxu for the brain. Less colour means less work for the brain which means more capacity to absorb the content of your site.

 

[That Bates Girl]

Note also: colour perception is a bit of a luxu for the brain. Less colour means less work for the brain which means more capacity to absorb the content of your site.

Up to a point - you don't want your site to look like a tie-dyed global hypercolour t-shirt that's been caught in a paint factory explosion - But likewise, if you keep everything monochrome it's less easy for people to navigate, and you're missing out on the opportunity to guide people's attention to where you want it.

Lyds

 

[Root 66 Woodshop]

Colour is very important... you don't want to miss a beat or not receive the potential customers you could have because your missing the point.

Feel free to hi-light the above

 

[Excel Expert]

Fisicx - I've got the logo sketched out and like Nike's it can be applied in any combination of foreground and background colours. I've learnt that having logos with very set colours can limit what you do with it as it becomes less visible on certain backgrounds.

At the moment I'm leaning towards blue as to me it seems more corporate than the others and the vast majority of my clients are corporations. If you look at the colour chart above just about all the B2B corporations (Dell, HP, IBM, Intel etc) are all in that blue sector.

 

[fisicx]

...if you keep everything monochrome it's less easy for people to navigate, and you're missing out on the opportunity to guide people's attention to where you want it.

I agree. But one coloured box with the CTA may be all you need. As I say, with my site I've dropped just about all the colours and things have actually got better. All the design expets tell me it looks pants but the stats tell a different story. Obviously not going to work for everybody but until you do some testing on your own site how do you really know if the colours/imagery you use is any good. Try taking out some of the styling colours and see what happens...

 

[Paul Baldwin]

Carl, unless you are wanting to make a complete break from Excel Expert I'd keep the same colours for the sake of some continuity.

 

[JohneeMac]

The best way i've found to pick colours is from nature.

Grab a photo you love, sometimes related, sometimes not, then 'pick' colours from it.

See how they look and sometimes take them into Adobe Kuler for tweaking.

 

[Peanut Butter Man]

I agree with Bates about the colours used to stimulate the brain and during a recent study I did on McDonalds you realise that the golden arches (Red and yellow) are colours that stimulate the brain and remind you or make you think your hungry. Again, when McD first opened the restaurants were all red which served well to make you eat up fast and leave the table for the next burger munching profit.

It is when you start to understand the way in which we, as consumers are kidded with the use of colour and well known tactics used by stores that you, to some extent can avoid the pitfalls.

 

[helen walthorne]

Your branding and logo are important.

 

[helen walthorne]

I do like natural colours too...easy on the eye.

 

[helen walthorne]

Does anyone know how to 'trade mark' or protect your logo?

 

[fisicx]

Your branding and logo are important.

No they aren't. Branding is NOT about the colours and symbology, it is about the products and services offered - the connection with quality or price or some other value adding feature.

 

[helen walthorne]

I believe that branding and logo should go hand in hand with each other.

 

[Peanut Butter Man]

Fisicx is right... but so is Helen. The text books tell us what branding is... but surely tha branding is what the consumer thinks it is... and if they think it is the logo then it is. Tell Apple, Nike or Tesco to take away the logo and see just how much they lose. I think it is a sum of parts.

 

[helen walthorne]

Exactly!

 

[fisicx]

The apple logo wasn't most important thing. People brought the products and the company gained a reputation. The colours, syling and even shape of the logo changed over the years.

People associate a logo with a brand. A logo without a reputation isn't branding.

 

[Peanut Butter Man]

But without the logo people can't make the connection between the reputation and product. Consumers just arn't that clever

 

[helen walthorne]

I agree. Consumers aren't generally marketing experts.