How to Choose Your Brand Colors
- Colors
- 5 min read
- Updated on June 18, 2025
Choosing your brand colors isn’t just about picking your favorite shades. It’s a strategic decision influencing how your audience feels, remembers, and interacts with your brand. The right palette can shape perceptions, build trust, and support brand consistency across all platforms.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through a proven process to help you choose your brand colors with intention. Whether you’re building a brand from scratch or rethinking your visual identity, this step-by-step blog will give you clarity and confidence. We’ll explore color psychology, industry trends, competitor analysis, color harmony, accessibility, and more — all designed to help your brand stand out.
Understand the Psychology of Color
Color is more than decoration. It’s emotion, meaning, and memory packed into a visual cue. Your audience will subconsciously associate your brand with the feelings your colors evoke.
For instance, blue often suggests trust and reliability, which is why many tech and finance brands use it. Red conveys excitement or urgency, while green feels calming and connected to growth. Yellow feels energetic and youthful, while purple suggests creativity or luxury.
As a brand strategist, I recommend thinking about your brand’s personality first. Is it bold or soft? Playful or professional? Serious or vibrant? Once you know the personality, you can begin matching it with color psychology to make more strategic decisions.
Remember, color alone won’t define your brand, but when it aligns with your tone and messaging, it can leave a lasting impression.
Define Your Brand Personality
Before picking any color, take a step back and define who your brand is. A clear personality helps guide every visual choice, especially color. Are you minimal and modern, or playful and dynamic? Are you a premium brand or accessible to everyone?
Think of your brand as a person. What words describe it? Calm, confident, creative, daring, refined, energetic? Once you identify 3 to 5 traits, you’ll be better equipped to choose colors that reflect those attributes.
For example, a luxury skincare brand might lean into muted tones like ivory, gold, or forest green. A fun, creative toy brand might choose saturated primaries like bright red or electric blue.
Aligning your colors with your personality creates emotional consistency. It builds familiarity and trust every time someone sees your logo, website, or packaging.
Research Your Audience Preferences
Your colors need to resonate with your audience, not just appeal to your tastes. Spend some time learning what colors your target demographic naturally gravitates toward.
Younger audiences often respond well to bright, bold, energetic colors, while older or more traditional audiences may prefer muted tones and calming shades. If you’re targeting eco-conscious consumers, natural greens and earthy browns can feel authentic.
Surveys, user testing, and even social media polls can help you gather this insight. If you already have a customer base, study the colors they use, wear, or respond to in other brands.
The key is to make your audience feel understood and attracted at first glance. The right brand colors speak directly to them, without needing words.
Study Competitor Brand Colors
Color is one of the quickest ways to differentiate your brand in a crowded market. Start by auditing your competitors. What colors do they use? Are there patterns within your industry?
For instance, most fast-food chains use red and yellow because they stimulate appetite and grab attention. Many tech companies use blue to build trust. But what if you deliberately choose a different color direction to stand out?
This isn’t about being different just for the sake of it. It’s about understanding the visual space you’ll exist in and carving your unique presence. If everyone’s using safe colors, maybe you go bold. If everyone is vibrant, maybe you go clean and minimalist.
Your brand should feel familiar yet fresh, instantly recognizable without blending in.
Choose a Primary Brand Color
Once you’ve done your research, it’s time to choose your primary brand color. This will be the main color associated with your brand. It should reflect your core values and personality while standing out in your industry.
Your primary color will likely show up in your logo, website, social media graphics, packaging, and more. It’s your visual anchor — the one color that people remember when they think of your brand.
Choose a color that is flexible enough to work across light and dark backgrounds, digital and print formats, and in both small and large applications. It should also look good in both full color and grayscale versions when necessary.
Consistency is key. This color will carry your brand identity forward, so choose it with care and confidence.
Add Supporting Accent Colors
Accent colors bring depth and flexibility to your brand’s visual identity. These are secondary or tertiary colors that complement your primary shade. They help organize content, highlight elements, and add personality across platforms.
Ideally, pick 2 to 4 accent colors. These can be lighter tints or darker shades of your primary color, or they can contrast completely to create dynamic visuals.
For example, if your primary color is deep blue, a soft beige might be a calming neutral, and a bright coral could serve as a striking accent.
When adding accents, think about balance. You want harmony without overwhelming your core color. Use accents for buttons, icons, illustrations, or background sections — not everything at once.
A well-chosen set of supporting colors makes your brand look polished and intentional.
Use the 60–30–10 Rule
This simple yet powerful design principle helps you apply your brand colors consistently. It breaks down your palette usage into proportions:
60% dominant color (your primary color)
30% secondary color (a supporting shade)
10% accent color (used sparingly to draw attention)
The 60–30–10 rule keeps your visuals organized, avoids overwhelming your audience, and ensures clarity. It also helps maintain consistency across your website, marketing materials, and digital platforms.
For example, your website background might be 60% white or light gray (neutral), with 30% navy blue (primary), and 10% orange (accent) for call-to-action buttons or highlights.
This formula gives you structure while still allowing creative freedom — a balance that strong brands consistently achieve.
Test Your Colors in Real Applications
Colors may look beautiful in a palette, but the real test is how they perform in action. Before finalizing your choices, test them across various brand touchpoints — both digital and physical.
Design mockups of your website, business card, social media posts, and presentations using your chosen colors. How do they appear on screens and in print? Do they remain legible and accessible?
Also, check how your colors work on light and dark backgrounds. If your accent color disappears on certain screens or your primary shade feels too harsh in large areas, it may need tweaking.
This phase is about refinement. Your goal is to make sure your brand looks cohesive, professional, and clear in every situation.
Ensure Accessibility and Contrast
Brand colors must be beautiful, but also inclusive. Your audience will include people with different levels of vision — and your visuals need to remain legible for everyone.
Use contrast checkers to ensure your text stands out from your background colors. Avoid color combinations that are difficult to read or visually harsh. This not only improves usability but also shows you care about your audience’s experience.
Strong contrast and thoughtful use of color accessibility also impact your brand’s credibility. It signals that you’re intentional and considerate — traits people respect and remember.
Accessibility is no longer optional. It’s part of responsible design.
Document Your Color Choices in Brand Guidelines
Once your palette is finalized, the final step is documentation. Add your brand colors to a style guide or brand guideline document. This helps your team, collaborators, and designers stay consistent in every visual application.
Include details like hex codes, RGB, CMYK values, and usage instructions. Mention which color is primary, which are accents, and how to apply them using the 60–30–10 rule.
You can also include examples of do’s and don’ts — such as avoiding certain background clashes or using accent colors only in specific areas.
This document becomes the foundation of your visual identity, especially as your brand grows and scales. It ensures your story is told clearly and consistently — every single time.
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