Monica Pitts 0:00
Hello again. And welcome back to marketing with purpose. My name is Monica Pitts, and I am your host today for this episode all about color. Have you ever wondered why red dominates fast food chains? While banks tend to use green in their logos? Yeah. Well, that's what we're going to figure out today. Because today's episode is all about color theory for brands, and what your colors really say about you. Now, I have a degree in agriculture. So I spoiler alert, yeah. I don't know how that like equates into me owning a web design firm for the last 18 years. But somehow, that's where life took me. And so everything that I knew about color actually comes from my gut, which is a pretty powerful thing, because that's what color theory is all about. It's about how colors impact everything from our mood, to our appetite. So I actually had to pool my designers and have them give me some lessons and break down color theory for me. Because not surprisingly, all of my training in Animal and Plant Science did not equip me to train you about color theory. So in this episode, today, we're going to talk about the color theory basics for branding, different terminology that you can use to describe color. And we're going to give you some tips on choosing your colors by breaking down the positive and negative connotations for each color and get a little bit of background on how they make people feel. So that way, you know exactly what your colors are going to say about your brand. So let's get to business. You're on mission and you just need more people to know about it. And whether you're brand new to marketing or a seasoned pro. We are all looking for answers to make marketing decisions with purpose. I'm Monica Pitts, a techie crafty business owner, mom and aerial dancer who solves communication challenges through technology. This podcast is all about digging in and going digital. I'll share my marketing know how in business experience from almost 20 years of misadventures, I'll be your backup dancer. So you can stop doubting, and get moving towards marketing with purpose. This episode is sponsored by MayeCreate design. Yeah, that's right. We sponsor ourselves and brought to you with love by our Marketing on a Shoestring mini course. Now our free beginner's mini course is all about marketing on a budget. And contrary to popular opinion, you don't have to spend a million dollars or do something that you hate to market your business, get ready to challenge traditional marketing assumptions, because this 101 mini course is designed to give you a rock solid foundation, so you can make the right decisions for you with total confidence. You can check it out at you mayecreate.com. That's youmayecreat.com. And the link, of course will be in the show notes. Okay, now back to business. Okay, so let's hop all the way back up to the top. Have you ever stop to think about why red dominates fast food brands, while banks gravitate towards green? Like, have you ever wondered that? Obviously, I'm a student of color in my gut, but a student of agriculture in the classroom. So I wondered, I really wondered. And it's because colors impact everything from our mood to our appetite. And branding pros know that color is just one more tool in their marketing toolbox, right? It's like writing or design color is a tool. Because between 62 and 90% of our products, first impressions are actually determined by its colors. Yeah, we don't know it. But we actually pick things because of the colors. I feel this, especially when I'm looking at wine labels, and I'm trying to pick my next bottle of wine. I was actually trying to pick a bottle of wine the other day, and I was like, Ah, this one's on sale, but it doesn't have a pretty label. And my nine year old was like, does it matter? And I was like, of course it matter. Right? It matters to me, I want a pretty wine bottle. So most of the time when people choose their brand colors for their business or their organization, they just go with colors that they like, and there's certainly an honest quality and making decisions based on your gut reactions, right? Because at its base level, that's what color theory is really all about. It's the study of people's reaction to color. Now your brand colors though, they can leave a positive impression for your audience and come together harmoniously in a design, or they can be like really hard to read and awkward and loud. They could be like your designers worst nightmare. And if you're the lucky bloke that gets to be that designer, you want to make sure that you pick up colors that are going to work, they're going to stand and be right for you and your brand. And you can use them over and over and over again. Now in this episode, we're really going to stay focused on color theory and the psychology behind color. In the next episode, we are going to talk about good logo colors, and how to bring it all together and pick the right ones for you. Okay, so this is all big picture, and then we're going to get into the How to in our next episode. So let's start with what is color theory. It is the study of how colors work together and affect your emotions and how you perceive things. Now, we all know our colors. Yeah, we do we know them. But it can be really difficult to talk about color without the terminology to express what you see and feel. A lot of my clients, they know it when they see it. And so when I'm having conversations with them about color, it can be pretty lively. Some of them express their opinions with a lot of clarity, while others are resorting to some pretty creative tactics, like bringing in swatches of fabric or tennis shoes, paint samples, all kinds of different things, to explain what they're looking for. And I appreciate that creativity, I got it, I think it's awesome. And it really helps me understand Oh, it really, they want it to be soft, they want it to be matte, they want it to feel muted, or they want it to be vibrant, and shiny and bright, right. So that can absolutely help finding inspiration around you. Now web colors can be kind of tricky. And I always explain this to people. Because with web color, with anything digital, there's light shining through the back of the color, so the color is different. And on different screens, they're calibrated in different ways, right. So some of them will be brighter, some of them might look yellowish, some could be blue, some could be more white, you know, it's it's different everywhere. Our goal is to create a color palette that you can use over and over again, that's that's useful and remains true to itself within the different mediums that you're going to use it for. Right. So my designers helped me create a list of terms that they felt would be really useful to explain how colors work. Okay, so the first term is hue. And hue is what color is they're the words that we learned as kids to define colors, that red, yellow, blue, so forth. Yep, that's it. So he was actually technically the wavelength of light that's reflecting back off of the particles of the object that we're looking on. Now next is value. So he was the color and then value indicates the lightness or the darkness of a color. So it's determined by how much white or black a color has in it. So a hue of orange or blue could be light, if they have white added in, that would mean that there are a tint. So new add white to a hue, it's a tint of the color. Now when you add black to it, that's called a shade. Yeah, and then when you add white and black, so if you add gray to a pure hue, then it becomes a tone of the color. Yeah, tint, shade, tone, value hue. I know you're totally following me here. And then last but not least, Chroma Chroma is something that they talk about often too. So Chroma is the color intensity or purity. So a hue with high chroma has no additives in it, no black, no wider gray added in. And adding those colors to another hue would reduce its Chroma. And some colors are naturally just a much higher Chroma color. So like think about neon colors, they're really bright, right? So that's a high chroma color. And I am going to do my very best to use these terms throughout the rest of this episode. So that way I am clearly communicating about color. Now, one thing that we have so many conversations about in the office is accent colors because clients say they want something to pop. Okay, now
you don't have to add neon colors or outline letters or add a starburst or even a huge heavy shadow to make something pop. That like pop image can actually be obtained by choosing a color that contrasts with the other colors in your color screen. Yeah. Or you can just add space around stuff so that way it stands on its own. I actually had a in depth conversation about making things pop with that same nine year old who was judging me for wanting to pick a pretty wine label. Okay, so she was working on an art project and it was a Dragon Eye it's really cool. Actually. It's got scales all around the outside of the paper and in the middle of the paper is the dragon's eye and I wanted the eye of the dragon to pop so I thought we needed to use an accent color and And to me, I wanted to use a complementary color, like a color that was on the opposite side of the color wheel from the one that she was using, and her predominant color was purple. So I thought, Ooh, a yellow Dragon, I can't you just see how that like middle of the eye would just who would just jump off the page, right? Or maybe even like a really bright yellow green would work really well. But my girl is like, all matchy matchy. And she said, Oh, heck, No, Mom, there's no she, like, had no reason why she would possibly do that, she could not understand why we would want to do that. And so she instead achieved that like accent color by just choosing a lighter tint of the colors that she was using. So she had, you know, the dark purple, and she had medium pink. And then she chose a very light lavender, and a super light pink. So that lighter tint, and that made the middle of the dragon, I jump off the page, maybe not as much as if she would have used bright yellow or a yellow green, but it did a great job. And you can still very much see where the focal point of the design is. So if a nine year old can do it, I know your designer can do it, too. All right. So if you are not married to a color yet for your brand, which I'm guessing you're not or else why would you be here, maybe you just like to talk about colors, then I would suggest first defining what you don't want out of your colors. Right Abilene was like, I don't want to have another color and my color scheme I, I want it to be just purples and pinks. And that's it right. And that's actually an analogous color scheme. But I'll get more into that in the next episode. Because if you just define what you don't want, it gives your designer and yourself a lot of room to play with the colors that are right for your brand and your design as you're moving and developing your design. So first, define any colors that you're offended by or just feel wrong. And then consider what you want your colors to say about your brand. And you can build a short list of options for your brand. So I like to think about this by first thinking about the core values of your business, like what are the core values of your business because we want your logo and your branding and your colors to all align around your core values to make sure that you're showing who you are. Okay. It is tricky though there is no absolutes in color theory, right because it's more of an art than a science. It's the study of how things work together. But there's still a lot of influence that's made on people by colors like 85% of purchase choices are made and influenced by colors. That's a lot, right. That's that's huge. But just remember as you're going through this, like don't beat yourself up because color theory is just a theory. It studies how colors affect humans all over the place. But culture and age and gender they all impact how people feel about colors. Our life experience impacts how we feel about colors, like I will never paint a room yellow, because when I was pregnant with my first child, I read all about wild colors like excessively It was ridiculous. I wanted the nursery to be the perfect hue. But I didn't know our baby's gender yet. So I didn't want to saddle a little boy with a pink room for the foreseeable future. And I knew I wasn't going to have time to paint after the baby arrived. So naturally, I gravitated towards a green or a yellow color palette, right? And when I started reading about it, there's this one guy Carlton Wagner, who said that yellow stimulates the anxiety center of your brain and would make my baby cry. Yeah, and then conversely, Latrice Iseman did research and found that most people associate yellow with sunshine and warmth and cheer. Then last but not least, the American Psychological Association said yellow constrain my eyes which would cause my baby to be fussy. Alright, so after reading all of that, I was like, I will never paint a room yellow. No, I won't. And I ended up painting Ellis's room, a really nice soft shade of sage green. Okay, so it was great. Ultimately, though your gut reaction to a color is equally as important as your audiences, it should reflect you and your core values. So despite the varied perception of colors, you really do want to choose colors that represent you, and you want to stay true to them. Because colors make your brand more recognizable, like you've immediately right. According to color, comm your like using consistent colors in your brand will make your company or organization 80% more recognizable to people. And this really resonates with me because I don't I don't remember numbers. Well, I don't remember like finite details very well. But I remember colors really, really well. Like when I was in college, I realized that if I color coded my notes or color coded my note cards, I could remember it everything I needed to know for my test because I could see the colors in my head. I was like, Oh, that plant is a red yellow green plant. So it wants full sun well drained soil and it's a broadleaf. Right? Yeah. Okay, so I learned all about plants and I'm talking about colors. Hey, but colors helped me learn, okay? It's the Dyslexics way we figure out how to learn in any way that works for us. There are no wrong ways. So if you need to color code stuff, do it. Okay, so now that we have those basic color terms out of the way, let's talk about what your colors say about your brand. Some people call this color psychology and I'm just gonna break it down color by color. I'm gonna go through blue, green, yellow, orange, red and purple. Yep, that's it. So let's start at the top with blue. Now there are positive associations of blue and negative. So positive associations, our intelligence, communication, trust, calm reflection, serenity and security, negative associations or blue or coldness, and motionless friendly Knit One friendliness. I always think of blue as a friendly color, but apparently people think it's unfriendly and that it's unappetizing. Interestingly enough, blue is actually a really, really popular brand color, like it is the most used brand color 33% of top brands use it in their logos. It is I see a lot of law firms, accountants, tech companies, nonprofits, lot of blue in those. And the feeling that blue evokes is largely dependent on the hue because Navy can feel more conservative, but Tech brands tend to use like a higher Chroma of royal or cyan blue, which feels a little bit more exciting. Like people in general love blue. 57% of men and 35% of women actually rank it as their favorite color. Now, on the flip side, people may love blue, right? But we also use it metaphorically to denote sadness or melancholy. You know, like we say, I'm feeling blue. And we also use it to explain something unexpected, like it's out of the blue, which feels pretty contradictory, honestly, to the all those positive adjectives that people use to describe it, like trust and serenity.
And unappetizing, that negative connotation is probably because blue isn't actually commonly found in natural foods. So they have studied and found that it suppresses appetites people are less likely to have blue as their logo for a restaurant. Except for Culvers clovers has a blue logo for their restaurant, and I've decided it's because blue is cold and Culvers sells custard, which is cold, it's ice cream, see? Yeah. I really do think about this all the time, you guys, I'm a total dork. Alright, so that's all for blue. Let's talk a little bit about green, positive associations of green our health, prosperity, harmony, hope, freshness, refreshment, nature, peace and growth. Now, negative associations include boredom, stagnation, envy and blandness. We see a lot of green, for brands that are for health foods, anything outdoorsy? Like from landscaping companies, to farm equipment dealerships, right. In medieval Europe, Green was actually associated with wealth and status. And I think it holds some of those connotations today. Because think about it, it's a super, super popular color for banks, almost all the banks in my town are green, that is their brand. Green is also a fan favorite. So it ranks in the top three favorite colors for both men and women. And I actually really like it as a secondary color in your color scheme. Because depending upon the intensity and the hue, it can blend in and feel almost like a neutral. So it's it's a good extra color, similar to blue. We also tend to use green metaphorically in the English language. When we refer to a person or a business as green, we mean that they're new, or they're fresh. And we also use it to convey jealousy, like green with envy. Yeah, talk about like, I feel like that's such opposites. But, hey, I can't pick how the English language works clearly or else I'd make everything easy to spell. Okay, so that's all for green. Now let's talk about yellow. Obviously, I'm never going to paint a room yellow because I think it's going to make a baby cry. But there's so many positive associations with yellow optimism, warmth, happiness, innovation, intellect, extraversion, like all those things. All yellow. negative associations can be irrational caution, anxiety, cowardice, fear. I mean, you'll find tons of yellow goes in the paving industry and roadside destinations like gas stations, food restaurants and popular retail chains. And I feel like that's because remember how he was talking about colors that pop? Yeah, yellow, this sucker pops. Okay. So, in general, like when I'm designing things, I use yellow in moderation, especially for things like brochures or websites, yellow and red. They're both amazing. And they really pop off of a page. And so when you see them on a sign along the side of the road, it draws your attention to it in in either a rule or an urban setting, right, because in a rural setting, it's surrounded by green, and, and blue sky. And then in an urban setting, it's a bunch of drab buildings, right? So it pops, it pops out of landscapes the same way it pops out of your designs. And in design, yellow works really well, especially when you balance it with cooler colors and neutrals, because too much yellow gets really loud, really fast. Now in some Eastern cultures, yellow is associated with royalty and spirituality. And it's believed that yellow stimulates mental activity and creativity as well as appetite, which is why I think that you see it in so many like fast food and food restaurants, and their branding. In nature, though, like on the flip side of yellow, yellow indicates danger, and a need for caution. Like even think about poisonous animals, they're often black and yellow. And in America, we use it for signs and traffic lights to indicate changes in road conditions or encourage people to slow down right, so we're using it to be like, ooh, be careful, right? And in the English language, we use yellow to express cowardly behavior, or a lack of ethics. Like we said it was like yellow journalism. So it's not it's not pure white. It's yellow. Yeah, so that's not exactly positive. Is it? Okay, orange. Now, when I think about orange, I think about warmth, and fun and youth. Other people think of courage, confidence, creativity, friendliness, energy. It does have negative connotations though just like everybody else, everybody like now these colors are people. Like okay, negative associations deprivation, frustration, immaturity. Hey, so I think youth it, I guess if you flip youth on his head, it's immaturity. Ignorance, sluggishness. Now, in the United States, Orange is often associated with Halloween celebrations. And so it symbolizes autumn and harvest and the supernatural, but in the Netherlands, Orange is associated with the Dutch royal family and national pride. So just thinking about those cultural perceptions again, now, okay, so despite all the positive things that I feel about orange, it's actually me and it gets a really bad rap. It's one of the least popular colors, like regardless of gender, culture, age 29% of people claim orange is their least favorite color. And 26% of people associate orange with low prices. Because I mean, think about it, you often see orange indicating clearance, or a markdowns like in retail stores. So if your product or service is at a less expensive price point, then maybe using orange as part of your brand would be a good way to signify to people hey, my brand is less expensive. Yeah, I mean, but okay, so despite that, it's still really actually a great color to use for call to action buttons. I think that's because it's complementary color pairing is blue, right. So orange and blue are complementary colors. And blue is everybody's favorite color. And if you pair orange with blue, it will just jump right off the page and draw attention to itself. It's like surrounded by any color or hue of blue, right? A word. word of caution though, if you do a lot of digital marketing, and if you are going to be building your website around a brand color of orange, just know that orange is a tough one to get ADA compliant. It almost only passes compliance as a background color. When topped with a flat black text like not gray, black and light orange does not usually pass on white either. So it's got to be orange like pumpkin orange. Yeah. Which brings me to my second last color red. Now man, red is a really popular color and logos. I see it all the time. I think it's because we work so much with the construction industry. There's a lot of positive associations with red excitement, bold, warm, youthful. Power, passion, energy, courage, action. So those are all awesome. Now when you hear those positive associations you don't think spa relaxation, right? So maybe red is not the best color for your spa. But then there are some negative associations anger, yes, I have literally seen red before when it happened. I was like, Whoa, I just saw red. That's crazy. I'm this angry, probably need to take a deep breath and go drink a glass of water or something. Danger red is denotes danger, warning, defiance, aggression and pain. Now they say whoever they are, that the color red raises blood pressure and stimulates your pulse rate and appetite. And outside of the construction industry, you'll see a lot of red and fast food restaurant logos, lots of them. And it doesn't even matter what region you're in. Like Chick fil A Jack in the Box Dairy Queen KFC, Pizza Hut Burger King Arby's when these McDonald's noodles and Company. Domino's has read in it Popeyes chicken. Yeah. Okay, so I think you're getting the point here, Chipotle, Dunkin Donuts I could keep going on. There's so many. So it is super, super popular for those fast food chains.
And I think it's because it's supposed to be stimulating appetite, right. But I also think that they're out on signs on the side of the road. And when it's surrounded by green and blue sky and an Earth, it pops right off the side of the road, right. It's used in a lot of law firm logos. Also, I think it's because of that power. piece of it. Right? Courage. Now, I feel like red I mentioned this when I talked about yellow. I think it's an amazing accent color. It's it is an attention grabber. Now we all understand why. One popular study actually proved that a red call to action button will convert 21% higher than a green call to action button. I think it's because it makes people notice it. But I also feel like that when people design with enormous areas of read, it feels really, really intense. It's just like the information is yelling at you. And that's not to say that you can't do a good job of it, there are some websites that do a great job of it. Now, red can be a tricky color for ADA compliant design as well, just like orange, it can be done. But the contrast needs to be just right to make sure that your content is legible. It's best when you use red on a white background, it does not often pass compliance on darker backgrounds. It's just not easy to read. Now, plus if reds are color, like if that's the color you want to use, your design should function without it. I say this because colorblindness affects people like all over right, so one in 12 men are colorblind. And individuals with red green color blindness, they have a difficulty distinguishing colors, they're just going to see it as a different more neutral color, they're not going to see red, okay? They can even mistake blue for purple, because they don't perceive the red component of purple. So if red is going to be your main color, and men are your main audience, then make sure that you run that design through a color checker and you are accommodating for people with colorblindness and they can see the different parts of your design. I actually just talked with a guy the other day and he said he walked into a bank. And he was like, Hey, what are you guys going to be putting on that sign out there? It's just a big sign. It's blank? Well, it's because he's colorblind. And so he couldn't see the things that were on the sign because the hues were so similar, that they all came together and we're the same color for him. That's never what we want. And I know that that bank didn't intentionally do that. But now that you're aware of it, you can make sure that if you do have red or green in your logos and color palette, you are checking to make sure that you have enough contrast that people can see what you want them to see in your designs. Now last but not least, we have purple. I love purple. It's like one of my favorite colors. There's lots of positive associations with purple. Okay, wisdom, wealth, sensitivity, understanding people think it's glamorous and sophisticated. Its spiritual. Its creative, its quality. Now negative associations include reflection, decadence, introversion, suppression, excess moodiness, inferiority, man, those are really negatives. I like the positives better. I'm a glass half full girl. Now you will see actually quite a few food brands with purple in the lineup of their logos. And there's also a lot of tech companies, churches and nonprofits as well. But overall, I don't see purple in people's logos nearly as much as I see blue or green or red. Historically, people have associated purple with royalty and, and I associate it with sure Because I would see it all the time growing up in the Catholic Church. But different cultures definitely perceive purple differently. The Romans wore it. Even though it was more expensive than gold and clean look, Queen Elizabeth the first declared that only the royal family could wear it. So I think that's why some people think that purple is like exclusive, right? It's the reason that they think it's exclusive in a positive and a negative way. Right. And in Japan, the color purple signifies wealth and position. But in Thailand and Brazil, purple is the color of mourning, right. So just back to those cultural meanings, make sure that you're picking a color that makes sense for the culture that you are promoting your company in, or organization. Now, the experience designer in me, I gotta tell you guys, that there are a few challenges with purple. It is super lovely, I just one of my favorite colors, but it is unpredictable to print. Sometimes a dark bluish purple can actually end up looking like Navy, a reddish purple can feel like maroon or even Brown when you print it. So if you're sure that this is the color that you want to use, and I totally encourage you to use it, I love it. Just make sure that before you print things, you go talk to your printer, and maybe even do a test run to make sure that you get the color that you're really looking for. It's kind of funny, because when I said this to the MayeCreate designers, as we were discussing this podcast, they said an art school, that color was one of the most difficult colors to mix. So they would buy red, blue, yellow, white, and black. And then they would mix them to make all they're almost all the hues that they were going to paint with. But they would get a tube of pre mixed cool I can't even pronounce the word coin, see and drew unknown. Oh my goodness, I wish I wish Tyler was here to tell me how to say this word violet. I have it written down in front of me. But either way, okay, so a very specific color violet. And it rounds out their palette because they said it's just so difficult to get purple right consistency, which I mean that rings, right? That makes sense, because why watched it come out all kinds of different colors on business cards. Okay, so now we've made it through them all yet. Blue, green, yellow, orange, red, purple. Ah, and you know all of the terminology. We just did some serious color ruminating right now. And I hope that with this information, you can go forth and start developing some preferences for the colors that you might use to represent your brand. Now in the next episode, remember, we are going to talk about what you really want out of your logo and brand color palette, you want it to reflect your brand personality, you want it to provide reliable design options, and you want it to set you apart from the competition. And we're going to define just how to do that. And I'll also explain to you how you can use Canva to build a really easy color palette, based on your core values and some photos that speak to you. And before I let you go I want to give one more shout out to our MayeCreate resource sponsor Marketing on a Shoestring. It is the free beginner's mini course to marketing on a budget, it lays the foundation of creating the right messaging to connect with your potential customer and prime them to buy. It unlocks the four part framework for making competent budget conscious marketing decisions. So you can stop second guessing and get a clear path forward. And it outlines the highest converting tactics that I know of for new marketers, so you don't have to waste time on strategies that will never reach your goals. Hop on over to you mayecreate.com For Instant Access. That's why
[email protected] So thank you so much for joining me today. Make sure to subscribe wherever you're listening so you don't miss out on our next episode. And don't be afraid to use that link in the show notes to go over and enjoy the fully formatted blog posts with all the pictures broken down covering every single thing that we talked about today because your next step is to put this information to action. And until next time, go forth and mark it with purpose.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
