Creating a flexible colour palette for your brand
Why are colour palettes so important? Colour is a really satisfying part of the design process, but there’s a lot to consider when choosing your brand’s colour palette. Colour is usually the first thing a viewer notices about your brand before they’ve had a chance to read your logo or go through your website. So this means your colours need to be reflective of your business and communicate your values quickly. And if you're a designer, ensuring the client knows their palette well, it’s flexible and they understand it’s potential is an important part of the handover process.
Starting points for choosing a colour palette for your business
Write down keywords for your brand values and your audience
Choosing colours reflective of your brand values are really important, so establishing these is an essential first step. I encourage my clients to think carefully about their brand values and often recommend they create a mind map of their values and what each one represents visually to them.
For example, if you are a children’s wear brand that identifies as fun, sustainable and approachable, you might think of brightly coloured sweets, soft colours, toys and consider using a few pop colours that add a fun element into your branding.
So this technique is really good for creating visual links between your branding and your values, but it also can give us valuable information on what colours we probably shouldn’t use! So to use the same example, if you wanted to use fun, sustainable and approachable as your values, you would probably avoid darker tones, black and acidic colours. But this darker palette would be perfect for a bar or trendy restaurant whose target is young adults with fun, adventurous and edgy values.
Keep your colour palette flexible and balanced
Ensure your colours are flexible and use a range of tones such as neutral, dark and bright. This is to ensure you are never limited by your palette and left wondering what colour to use for your next social media post. Each colour should have a purpose and be adaptable to multiple elements of your business. It also helps ensure your palette is generally balanced. By this I mean you can use your light tones with the colours to cool them off or use your dark tones for emphasis.
Check your competitors
You never want to be seen as mimicking your competitors, even accidentally! It can cause confusion for your customers as your competitors are part of your brand community. So take a look at people in your market and ensure your brands colours are different enough for you to shine and are respectful of others in your space.
It’s quite normal to pick colours that match the overall conventional tone of your industry and consider what your customers expect to see, but you can also just as easily make the choice to NOT fit into your industry - setting yourself apart from your competitors. This will help you stand out boldly, but your colour palette still needs to reference your core values.
Pick colours that you love - kinda?
If you could take one thing away from this blog, try to find colours that you love to work with. You’re going to be looking at these colours everyday and integrating them in different ways in all aspects of your business - so if you love them it will make your work more fun and enjoyable.
That said, it’s not always possible. If you’re favourite colour is baby pink and you are opening up an architecture firm for tech spaces, it might be best to go with something a little more industry-appropriate... or maybe not? That’s the fun part of design - you can stick to conventions or throw them out the window.
My formula for choosing the perfect, flexible colour palette
So when I have clearly identified my clients values, inspirations and competitors I can start pulling together colour ideas. I look for these five things to ensure my colour palettes are easy-to-use and flexible.
Main colours to represent the brand.
These colours will be the main focus of the brand and will be supported by the other colours. I try to aim for between 1-3 main colours.A lighter tone to brighten the brand.
I like having a lighter tone that compliments the main colours but can be used when the main colours need a break.
An accent colour for a call to action or to add a sparkle of colour.
This is the kind of colour that can be used for CTAs and buttons. Preferably a tone that matches your other colours but also stands out against them so you can grab viewers attention when it really matters.
A neutral colour for the base of the palette.
Having a light neutral colour allows you to add clean space in your materials and provides a base for your more powerful main colours.A darker tone to deepen the palette and for text, allowing text to be read easier.
A deep tone in the palette is really important to allow your text to be easy to read. It also doesn’t have to be a 100% black - consider warm blacks, dark greys, dark greens - there’s lots of flexibility.
Where to find inspiration:
The usual suspect - Pinterest
Pinterest is, as you may expect, my primary go-to but maybe not for what you think. I avoid looking at other designers or branding projects on pinterest for inspiration as I find myself comparing their work to mine, and to take colours from other designers simply feels like (and probably is) plagiarism. Instead, I focus on photography! I use photography to identify the tones of food, lifestyle and home decor for inspiration. I find the patterns, pick out colours, pull them together and see if they fit my client’s target values.
It’s important to note that you can develop a set of colours and apply it to your designs and it might just not work - so make sure to take this approach with a pinch of salt, it’s a collaboration of many elements!
A random colour generator - coolors.co
Coolors is a random colour palette generator that has lots of really fantastic features. If you press space, random colours appear and you can lock them in place to save them or press space again to generate a whole new range.You can also pick specific shades which is pretty awesome.
I think my favourite way to use this website is to actually use it with a few colours in mind, maybe a darker tone and some bright tones - then allow it to randomise the other colours. It allows me to consider colours I wouldn’t typically think of.
Search Designs by colour - Designspiration
One thing I really like doing, usually when I’ve already picked a palette, is to put the colours into Designspiration and see what other designs they have that match my palette.
I do this for two reasons:
To ensure nothing big comes up - like I’ve accidentally stolen the colours for a coca-cola campaign or a brand in a similar market.
Because it’s really cool to see how other artists and designers have used these colours and see what their target audience and values were for those projects. You can then use this knowledge to figure out if you’ve made the right choice for your project.
Put your palette to the test
So after all this, you should have a flexible, balanced colour palette that you love, that truly reflects your brand’s values and its place in the industry! You should also feel confident in what inspired your colours and their place within your marketplace.
Now you can apply it to your designs across all your brand’s elements to ensure your branding is coherent and everything is working for the same team!
Hey! I’m Amy, and this is Begin Studio.
Here I create unique, thoughtful brands for small businesses in the UK and beyond. I guide my clients from logo and branding design all the way through to packaging, websites and even the social media launch of their new business. I also run a small blog with resources for designers who are just starting out in the freelance world or are recent graduates.
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