How do I choose colors for my brand and website
The Psychology of Color in Branding
When it comes to selecting the colors for your website and branding, it’s important to understand that they are much more influential than just looking good. Color will have an impact on how your clients or customers feel and perceive your brand.
Visitors to your site will be forming an opinion about your values, professionalism, and personality from the moment they arrive. Color selection can play a big role in that first impression of your brand.
As a web designer, I’ve seen how thought-out color choices can lift a brand and help it attract the right kind of client or customer. I’ve also witnessed, all too often, how poor selections can create confusion or disconnect, whether that be from using the wrong colors or simply using too many.
It’s not simply a case of picking your favorite color.
Colors need to reflect your business’s values, personality, and target audience. It’s not simply a case of picking your favorite color.
In this post, I’ll show you the meaning behind the major colors used in marketing - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and neutrals such as black, white, and gray. We will learn about what each color conveys and how brands use them strategically. We will discuss when certain colors are appropriate, or not, depending on your industry.
Red - Action, Energy, Passion, and Urgency
Red is an extremely bold and powerful color in the spectrum. It attracts attention and creates emotion. This is one of the reasons why brands use it to create a sense of urgency, such as during a flash sale. The excitement it creates can be useful for “buy it now” and “subscribe” buttons on a website.
Red is linked to passion, excitement, strength, love, currency, and energy. It is popular with food and drink brands that want to appeal to a younger audience - Coca-Cola and KFC for example. Here they are using red to stimulate excitement and appetite.
However, red should be used carefully and sparingly. It can come across as aggressive if it’s overused. It is not good for brands that want to appear calm, luxurious, or grounded.
Best for:
Retail and restaurants
Sports and entertainment
High energy brands
Action-driven messaging
Orange - Confidence, Creativity, and Approachability
Orange is considered a less intense color. It's a middle ground between red and the calm optimism of yellow. It’s considered friendly, warm, and interesting. Brands will often incorporate orange to give a sense of fun, innovation, and playfulness, without being overbearing.
Orange is popular with brands that want to come across as energetic and approachable. It is aligned with feelings of confidence, creativity, and enthusiasm. In web design, it is often used in conjunction with a calmer or more neutral pallet to inject some spark, in a less intense way than red would.
Some of the brands that have used orange in their logos include Fanta, Soundcloud, and Mastercard.
Best for:
Creative and lifestyle brands
Startup and tech companies
Brands that want to appear friendly and fun
Calls to action and highlights with neutral tones
Yellow - Optimism, Warmth, and Attention
Yellow is a cheerful, bright, sunshiny color that’s full of energy. It works well for invoking a sense of joy, happiness, and playfulness. It is also particularly good at standing out in a busy environment, so it works well for calls to action and banners, etc.
Yellow is associated with creativity, warmth, innovation, and optimism. It can also spark feelings of youthfulness and curiosity, making it particularly good for brands that want to come across as uplifting.
Some of the bands that use yellow effectively are McDonald's and Ikea. They do this to convey friendliness and warmth. However, yellow can be a tricky color. While it’s useful in small doses for grabbing attention, too much yellow, especially bright shades, can be overbearing and create visual fatigue.
Best for:
Creative and youth-focused brands
Education and coaching services
Products that want to feel fun and energetic
Adding contrast to minimal designs
Green - Growth, Nature, Freshness, and Trust
The color green is often associated with well-being, nature, growth, and trust. From a marketing perspective, it is often used to convey a sense of balance, health, and calm. It’s extremely popular with brands that want to show themselves as environmentally friendly.
Because green can promote feelings of harmony and is easy on the eye, it lends itself to businesses that are in the wellness, finance, and sustainability fields. Green also projects progress and prosperity, which is why it’s popular with organic food packaging and fintech brands.
Companies like Spotify, Evernote, and Whole Foods use green to convey growth, health, and creativity. Darker greens can give a feeling of richness and luxury, whereas lighter greens give a fresh and friendly vibe.
Best for:
Investment, finance, and non-profits
Eco-friendly and sustainable brands
Health and wellness businesses
Conveying calm, growth, and clarity
Blue - Trust, Stability, Loyalty, and Professionalism
Blue is an extremely widely used color in branding, and for good reason. It’s the color of calmness that invokes images of clear skies and deep seas. It is associated with logic, trust, and dependability. When it comes to conveying safety and confidence, blue is the go-to color.
Blue is a popular choice with financial institutions, tech companies, and healthcare providers. These include brands such as IBM, Chase Bank, PayPal, Facebook, and Bupa. These companies are using blue to promote a feeling of trust.
For websites, blue is a good choice as a base color. Darker shades convey wealth and tradition, whereas lighter shades give a feeling of light and space. However, blue is used a lot. If you wish to stand out from the crowd or want to give an air of high energy or boldness, it should be used carefully.
Best for:
Tech companies and SaaS products
Finance and healthcare companies
Education brands
Businesses that want to build trust and credibility
Purple - Creativity, Luxury, Spirituality, and Imagination
Purple is a colour that sits between the calmness of blue and the energy and boldness of red. It is a color associated with creativity and being refined. Purple is very popular with luxury brands and those wanting to give an air of spirituality. It also says wisdom and originality.
Purple is not a widely used colour, and this can be a real advantage when done properly. Its scarcity can actually make it memorable and distinctive. Some of the feelings associated with purple are a premium quality, exclusivity, wealth, and royalty. It can also feel artistic and mystical.
Some of the brands that have used purple well are Cadbury, Hallmark, Asprey, and Liberty of London. Darker purples give the sense of luxury and professionalism, whereas lighter purples and lilacs give a more spiritual and feminine tone.
Best for:
Creative industries (design, music, content)
Beauty, skincare, and wellness brands
Luxury brands
Businesses that want to feel premium, exclusive, or soulful
Neutrals - Sophistication, Simplicity, and Versatility
Whilst bold colours can be the focus, neutrals (particularly black and white) are the foundation of your brand identity. They can provide space, structure, and balance to your brand. Neutral colours can form the actual brand and are popular with companies that want to appear modern or minimalist.
Black
Black is used to give a sense of authority and sophistication. It is timeless and can be sleek, making it very popular with luxury brands.
When used properly, black can create drama or contrast. This makes it especially useful for a background or a bold headline. However, overuse of black can feel heavy or foreboding and serious. If done properly, black can make an important impact.
White
White represents cleanliness, space, and simplicity. It also gives a sense of sophistication and modernism. It is popular with wellness and tech brands.
In web design, white space is essential. Often underused, it allows information to be perceived as uncluttered and helps with readability. It allows the content to breathe and gives an air of sophistication and elegance. When used with a black background, white can also be bold and impactful.
Grey, beige, and taupe
More subtle and muted colors such as these are calm, supportive, and flexible. They are often used as background colors rather than white, to complement other colors and give some variety.
Many of these are popular for businesses that want to give a modern feel to their brand. They also convey trust, grounding, and understanding. Grays offer sophistication, while beiges and taupes give a natural feel.
Best for:
Pairing with bold colors
Minimalist and contemporary websites
Luxury, architecture, and fashion brands
Brands that seek sophistication and simplicity
Conclusion
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of the feelings that can be invoked by carefully considering your color choices. By thinking about the message you want to convey, color alone can either help or hinder.
Simply choosing your favourite color could well be detrimental to your business. After all, it’s your clients and customers you need to build trust with. They are not looking for pretty, they are looking for the product or service you offer. If you can give the right messaging with a carefully curated color palette, you increase the chances of them wanting to connect with you.
