Last updated on February 9th, 2023
Colors have deep-rooted impacts on our emotions and behavior. They play a vital role in designing a powerful brand identity. Colors are one of those critical logo elements that a start-up or small businesses feel the most uncertain about when creating a logo.
Want to design a logo for your business? Well, since a logo is the face of your brand, it must be eye-catching and relevant to your business. And, colors are essential elements of a logo design, and that’s why you should learn logo color scheme and combinations.
Here, in this post, we will drill-down to know how to select the color and how to use a color scheme the best way when designing your logo.
How To Select Your Logo Color Scheme
Before we dive into the logo color scheme, let’s discuss how to select the logo’s perfect color scheme. Every color has its meaning, and it varies according to industry. Even the whole image of your brand or company depends on the color scheme selected.
Here Are A Few Quick Tips For Selecting The Perfect Logo Color Scheme For Your Logo and Brand
01. Know Your Brand Voice
You’re the person who knows your brand the best. You need to understand the type of message you want to convey to your audience. Is your company friendly and relatable? Is it educational and commanding? Or, is it lively and bold? Think about it.
Visual things become memorable, and brand voice can be conveyed correctly only if you choose the correct brand color scheme. For instance, yellow shows friendliness and confidence, while blue expresses belief and intellect.
02. Competitors’ Research
Analyzing your competitors is a must whether you’re creating your marketing strategy or selecting your business’s color. Competitor analysis helps to get a better understanding of the industry and trends. This also enables you to explore the gap and choose the best competitor.
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03. Color Psychology
Color speaks its story itself. Colors have the caliber to portray anything positive, negative, dull, enthusiastic based on the tints & shades, and no one wants to convey any wrong message through the logo. Understanding color psychology is necessary to deliver the true meaning of your brand. It’s also essential to make your brand memorable.
Color Details You Should Know
Before digging deep into the significance of colors, let’s understand the meaning of some terms associated with the colors schemes:
Hue vs. Color
Color is the umbrella term that describes tone, hue, tint, or shade. Hue symbolizes the dominant color-family of a particular color on the color wheel. For instance, Red is hue, and pink is tint. Blue is hue, and twilight is shade.
Tints
A tint is created when white is added to a hue. Simply put, lighter shade to make the color lighter. For example, grey is created when white is added to black.
Shades
A shade is created when black is added to a hue. For example, twilight is created when black is added to blue.
Tones
When a hue is mixed with grey, a tone is created.
Primary Colors
Three primary colors are— Yellow, red, and blue.
Secondary Colors
When any of the two primary colors are combined, a secondary color is generated. For example, Red + Yellow = Orange, Red + Blue = Purple, and Yellow + Blue = Green.
Tertiary Colors
The third set of colors is created by mixing a primary and a secondary color, adjacent on the color wheel, in equal amounts.
Warm Colors
Orange, red, and yellow bring forth a calm and warm feeling as they remind us of things such as the sun or fire.
Cool Colors
Green, blue, and purple give forth a relaxed feeling as they remind us of soothing things such as water or grass.
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Know What Color Says
Now that we know the basic terms let’s understand what each color signifies in your logo.
Red
Red is a part of the primary color with a wavelength of 700 nanometers. Red is an intense color and signifies Urge, Confidence, Anger, and Risk. On the other node-red also shows love and affection.
Orange
Generated by mixing primary colors—yellow, red, and orange with wavelength 600 nanometers. Orange shows activeness and inspiration, interest, enthusiasm, and friendliness.
Yellow
Yellow is the most noticeable color with a wavelength of 580nm. Yellow signifies hopefulness, confidence, extraversion, and sociability. The yellow color is also cheerful and warm.
Blue
Like the clear sky and deep sea, the blue color is serene and endorses tranquility and concord. With a wavelength of 492 – 455 nm, blue also denotes intellect, reliability, and steadiness.
Green
Soothing color with wavelength 550nm, green is used for fertility, health, good luck, and wealth. It also gives the feeling of comfort.
Purple
Purple has a wavelength between 380 and 450 nanometers. Purple is a mystical or royal color. It also shows opulence, royalty, thoughtfulness, excellence, and reality.
Brown
Brown has a wavelength of 600 nanometers and is associated with Mother Earth and nature, resilience, dependability, and security. Brown is also used for showing loneliness, sadness, and separation.
Black
Technically black is not considered a color. It’s just the absence of light. But in the graphic design world, the word black has a dual meaning where it shows sophistication, charm, impartiality, and element. It also indicates darkness, despair, peril, coldness, and death.
White
White has the wavelengths of all visible light, and it isn’t a significant color like black. But in the world of art & design, it has immense importance. It is identical to purity, peace, and goodness.
Grey
Grey is created by combining black and white and is considered as detached and temperamental or sulky color. And it’s also used to communicate primness, refined, honorable, conservative, modest, elegant, and authoritative.
Conclusion
Whether you’re a brand or on the verge of being a brand, selecting the best color for your logo may not be a cakewalk for you. While creating a logo with the help of a logo template and selecting a color scheme, it’s better to do thorough market research and understand what your brand is all about. What message you want to convey to your audience? Let us know what worked best for you and which color family worked best for you in the comments below.
