Colour Works

Colour Works

Colour Works 2560 1316 Jackie Maddocks Creates

The influence of colour

Colour is a vital part of communicating your brand, as colour can have an instant effect of how your audience feels and reacts to your brand. In fact 62% – 90% of first impressions are based on colour alone! Our eyes are drawn to colour and it can influence our mood and actions.

Let’s take a look at how some colours can influence us…

Yellow

Yellow is an energetic colour that represents fun, happiness, and sunshine.

Depending on what shade of yellow you use, it can help your company convey positivity, hope, joy and warmth. And it can represent ‘value’.

When you think about companies with yellow in their designs, think about McDonald’s golden arches, and Subway’s fresh logo.

Green

Depending greatly on the shade of green, it can represent Earth, nature, growth or money. It conveys freshness, calm and is environmentally friendly.

When used in an office environment or retail space, green can be relaxing and even give off a healing vibe.

An interesting case study occurred when Heinz changed the colour of its classic ketchup from red to green, a colour known to evoke emotions relating to health. The result? One of the highest sales increase in the company’s history.

Red

According to a study published in the journal ‘Emotion’, found that people react faster and more forcefully to red, the primary reason behind the phenomena being that the colour red enhances physical reactions. Retailers use red to grab customer’s attention and cue them to take action in making a purchase.

If you are designing a retail space, using red can help keep customers moving in the direction you want.

Blue

The most popular colour in logos and in the corporate world is blue. The reason why is because blue is a very calming, but it also has many positive qualities including loyalty, strength, wisdom and trust.

A study in the Journal of Business Research, found that customers are actually 15% more likely to return to stores with blue colour schemes than to those with orange.

Black

Black is professional and credible. White is clean and pure, using them together makes for a logo that is timeless and beautiful.

Nike and Puma use black for an edgy vibe, while newspapers and publications use black and white for balance and simplicity.

Orange

A marketing experiment which attributed three words to each colour used by prominent companies, orange attracted connotations of ‘friendly, confidence and cheerful’.

In the same way that red increases heartbeat; orange increases oxygen and stimulates brain activity of the person gazing at the colour.

Many experts think Sainsbury’s used an orange logo to stand out on the high street and in retail parks. Why? Well, because a jaw-dropping 33% of retailers use the colour blue – and 29% use red.

Purple

Often associated with luxury, power, wisdom, creativity, and magic, it is the balancing colour between red and blue’s colour psychologies.

It used to be one of the most expensive colours to reproduce, which is why it is sometimes associated with royalty.

The dark, rich shade of purple used by Cadbury’s is instantly linked with luxury and quality.

Colour space

A colour space is an organisation of colours. It allows for reproducible colour, in both print and digital representations.

Here are 3 colour spaces, what they mean and how they work…

CMYK

Stands for ‘Cyan Magenta Yellow Black’ – they are the four basic colours used for printing colour images.

To make up a CMYK colour; cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink are measured in values from 0 to 100. CMYK colours are subtractive – meaning the colours get darker as you blend them together.

Here’s some examples of the CMYK values used in basic colours;
‘Black’ would be: 0 | 0 | 0 | 100
‘Red’ would be: 0 | 100 | 100 | 0
‘Green’ would be: 100 | 0 | 100 | 0

hex colour breakdown

RGB & HEX

Stands for ‘Red Green Blue’ – where light is added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colours.

The main purpose of RGB colours is for representation of images digitally, such as on TV’s and screens.

A ‘HEX’ colour (usually used in website development) is shown as a six-digit combination of numbers and letters. These are defined by its mix of Red Green Blue. A HEX code is essentially ‘shorthand’ for its RGB values.

CMYK

Stands for ‘Cyan Magenta Yellow Black’ – they are the four basic colours used for printing colour images.

To make up a CMYK colour; cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink are measured in values from 0 to 100. CMYK colours are subtractive – meaning the colours get darker as you blend them together.

Here’s some examples of the CMYK values used in basic colours;
‘Black’ would be: 0 | 0 | 0 | 100
‘Red’ would be: 0 | 100 | 100 | 0
‘Green’ would be: 100 | 0 | 100 | 0

cmyk for print

RGB & HEX

Stands for ‘Red Green Blue’ – where light is added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colours.

The main purpose of RGB colours is for representation of images digitally, such as on TV’s and screens.

A ‘HEX’ colour (usually used in website development) is shown as a six-digit combination of numbers and letters. These are defined by its mix of Red Green Blue. A HEX code is essentially ‘shorthand’ for its RGB values.

hex colour breakdown

Pantone

The ‘Pantone Colour Matching System’ is a standardised colour reproduction system. Each colour is defined by a Pantone code.

By standardising colours, different manufacturers in different locations can all refer to their Pantone guide to ensure colours are a match without direct contact with one another.

In branding this is very useful to ensure that your colours (no matter where they are printed) look exactly the same across all your printed media.

Once you have your suite of Pantone colours, they can be converted into CMYK values, RGB values and HEX codes to be used across all your business touch points; printed, digital or otherwise.

pantone colour book

Pantone

The ‘Pantone Colour Matching System’ is a standardised colour reproduction system. Each colour is defined by a Pantone code.

By standardising colours, different manufacturers in different locations can all refer to their Pantone guide to ensure colours are a match without direct contact with one another.

In branding this is very useful to ensure that your colours (no matter where they are printed) look exactly the same across all your printed media.

Once you have your suite of Pantone colours, they can be converted into CMYK values, RGB values and HEX codes to be used across all your business touch points; printed, digital or otherwise.

Colour use in Branding

When choosing a suite of colours for your brand you will first want to consider your target audience and how colour theory might help in getting you noticed. You might choose one hero colour mixed the same hues or monochromatic colours. You can refer to a colour wheel to pick complementary colours, or perhaps pick a triadic mix of colours for high contrast.

Colour can draw your eye to an image, trigger an emotional response and even communicate something without the use of words.
See below for some examples of colour use in Branding…

Bulldog Accounting
Blue as the Hero

Mixed with a cream and monochrome colour suite the Bulldog Accounting brand has a strong feel for trust and stability.

Collusion Barbers
Black & White

Collusion Barbers branding predominantly uses black and white, with orange as a highlight. Giving a strong but also friendly vibe.

jm creates stationery branding colourful
Triadic Palette

The colour palette of my own branding is high energy. Using blue, pink and yellow; these colours help to convey creativity, loyalty and fun!

Thank you for reading!

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