You see colors in everything around you, every moment of the day—but do you ever stop to think about the impact each of those colors is having on you? Whether it’s the calming effect of blue skies and fields of green, or the saliva-inducing red and yellow of your local fast food chain, each color is tapping into an emotion. There’s a whole science (and art) in the meanings of different colors. As an entrepreneur or designer, it’s essential to be aware of these color meanings to help you choose your colors wisely and tap into the magical power of color psychology.
For a business—whether it’s yours or your client’s—there are all sorts of places where color comes into play. You might immediately think of branding elements like the logo, business cards and stationery. Color choices will also be meaningful across online communication and marketing materials: your website, social media, emails, presentations as well as offline tools like flyers and product packaging.
Millions of years of biological conditioning have created certain associations between colors and objects or emotions, while some associations may be more recent. Understanding these associations will give you a shortcut to your customer’s heart, provoking a specific emotion and maybe even a behavior. Feelings are much more powerful than rational thoughts based on facts and figures and applying color psychology will make your branding efforts and designs much more effective.
Choosing colors
Before getting into the meanings of different colors, there are a few things you want to have in mind first:
Your target audience—You always want to start with a clear idea of who you are talking to. Marketing to kids (and their parents) will require a different approach to marketing to high-end luxury consumers.
Your brand personality—Is your brand more masculine or feminine, playful or serious, modern or classic? You’ll need to have a good feel for your brand identity so that you can choose the best color fit. (Read this article for more on creating your own brand scheme.)
Your competition—This is a tricky one: sometimes you’ll want to play by the rules of your industry to make sure that people recognize what your company does and sometimes you’ll want to break those rules so that you stand out against the crowd with a new and innovative approach to the industry.
A few things to watch out for, as well:
Cultural differences—Red represents good luck in China but in South Africa it’s the color of mourning. Americans associate green with money as that’s the color of dollar bills but that isn’t the case globally. You’ll need to be sensitive to these differences depending on where you are operating. Colors may also change in significance over time: red used to be seen as a strong, masculine color while blue was a feminine color suited for girls.
Shades and tones—A color may have a general meaning but lighter shades can vary dramatically compared to darker shades, while more natural, muted shades will differ from artificial neon colors. Make sure that you look at the specific associations of the different shades and tones. For example, if you’re using neon green, don’t assume that just because you’ve chosen a shade of green it’s going to be a good fit for an eco-friendly brand.
Color combinations—You’re probably going to be using more than one color and so you’ll need to give some thought to which colors work well together as well as which secondary colors can help you to add some highlights or accents. You can read more about the color wheel here.
For an example of a business that got it wrong, just take a look at the disaster that was Heinz purple ketchup.
Now let’s explore what all those colors mean…
Comentarios