How did you choose the colors for your business?
Did you pick your favorite colors?
Were your color choices dictated by the franchise, network marketing company, or other organization you signed on with?
Were they the colors everyone else in your industry was using?
Did your colors come preinstalled on the website you chose?
Did you set out to choose colors to boost your business success?
How much did you research to determine how well certain colors would represent your brand or business?
Are you aware that color psychology can influence business perception?
There are as many ways to choose colors for your business as there are people doing the choosing.
I’ve been reviewing color psychology and branding recently. This year I gave my website a complete makeover, including colors. I’d been using the same colors for many years. I carried them over from my photography studio, and I originally chose them because they were my favorite colors. After much research and some polling, I decided to keep my main colors, though I’ve changed the shades considerably from what they were. Thankfully, my clients and web visitors seem to like them as much as I do.
I’ve also redesigned websites for some of my consulting clients this year. For some we’ve changed those colors to reflect a shift in their business. For others, they have stayed the same, after reviewing some color psychology.
I am also in the process of starting another business, an entirely different one, and have decided to actually focus on choosing a theme, color scheme, and branding that will be cohesive and on point from its inception. I want to make sure I choose colors that will boost my business success from day one.
As a visual person, the colors on my site are important to me. I’ve spent a lot of time over the years studying websites and advertising and marketing pieces to analyze not only the impact of the words and layout, but also the color and style and to see what message the business is sending—and to try and measure how effectively they pulled it off.
Some have been great and some not so much. This is an exercise that can help you learn what to do and what not to do in your business. I highly recommend it. But back to color and how colors can help or hurt your business.
Color helps to define our business. We associate different colors with different feelings and with different meanings. While you want to choose colors that will make you happy and make you enjoy working in your business, you also need to consider how those colors will impact your potential customers. You do not want to choose a color scheme that will drive customers away.
How Will You Choose Colors for Your Business?
You can hire a designer to put together a color scheme for you. If you are already working with a designer to create your logo or website, you should take advantage of their expertise and listen carefully to their recommendations. After all, that’s what you’re paying them for.
If you are one of those people who has trouble matching clothes, this is probably a good idea for you—and might be critical if you’re color challenged. This doesn’t mean you have to accept whatever your designer tells you without question. If you’re not sure about their choices, ask them to explain their reasoning and why they think you should go with a particular color scheme or not.
You can go play with the color chips at your local paint store (yes, I have been known to do this) or choose your colors from a piece of artwork that you like.
You can use one of the many online color scheme sites (Adobe Color and Design Seeds are two of my favorites). And you can surf the web looking for sites whose colors catch your eye.
Or you can just use the default colors of the website template or theme you’re using. But I don’t recommend this option unless you love the color scheme.
Study the Psychology of Color
While all of these methods will work to choose colors, they may not necessarily be ideal for your business success. Remember that the colors you choose will influence not only what customers think of your business but whether or not they will stay on your site or do business with you. So in addition to one of these methods, take a look at the colorful infographic below to see how colors can affect your business brand and what customers think about different colors in business. This chart can help you choose the colors that are right for your business and will boost your business success.
How did you pick your business colors? Are your colors boosting your business? Or are you regretting your color choices? How are they working for you? Leave me a comment and let me know how its working for you.
From Visually.
5 Reasons You Need a Business Blog Now
»
Love this, Marie! Funny, too, as I’m in the middle of a blog series on this very same thing: How to choose the best color for your business branding. And, the post I published today just happens to be on ORANGE, which is one of my favorite colors and the main color in my branding efforts.
I’ve used orange forever. My love for orange started in high school (orange and black school colors) and grew when I went to the University of Tennessee for college (orange and white school colors).
I added orange to my resume and then my website. Things have changed over the years — and I went through a brief black-and-white-no-color phase — but was glad to re-brand myself, my business and my website last year. The orange is back!
Choosing orange was a happy accident(?) that I’ve grown to love. Besides being fun and exuberant, as suggested in the infographic you shared above, I’ve found research that suggests it is a “creative” color, too. Perfect for me as a designer.
I’m looking forward to your upcoming posts and your new website design!
So funny, Rob. Orange is a key element in my makeover as well. I love the warmth and energy of orange. We will definitely have to keep comparing notes. We seem to be on a parallel path at the moment.
That is funny, Rob. Orange is one of the key colors in my makeover. I love its warmth and energy and I am ready for some big changes. And I love the association with creativity, which of course, works for me as well. We will definitely have to keep comparing notes. We seem to be traveling on parallel paths at the moment.
This is fantastic! I’m color blind and in the middle of polishing the pixels on my startup NE1UP.com. Because of that, I’ve always been a bit clueless about colors and what ‘looks good.’ I try to do as much myself as I can to save money, being a single parent. Bootstrapping. 😉
Split testing is also great and pretty easy for testing variations on your colors…
Thanks for this!
You are most welcome, Thomas. I’m so glad I could help. I’ll be posting more on color in the next couple of weeks also.
Hi Marie,
Great information. I’m in the middle of a website change as well, and have chosen red for some of the lettering on the home page with some grayscale as well. Red is one of my favorite colors and it is interesting to note that it is often used in brands. Thanks for sharing.
Great post – color theory and the business plan! Sharing…
Thanks, Lorrie.
I did a lot of research on this when I was choosing my colors – and then decided to go with my faves pink and orange. I thought it was also good to convey who I am – and I have a lot of pink and orange in my life.
Wow, I did choose my colors based on my Vistaprint business cards/brochures/car signs…I am incorporating more blues, but would like to get into black and white this info is priceless to me thanks!!!
So glad I could be helpful for you, Liz. I think many of us end up with business colors the same way when we first start out–and then as we grow, they don’t always match our vision or our personalities and then it’s time to think about what the “right” colors for us really are.
I loved this post, Marie. I had been looking for new website colors and just updated my site. Thanks for this really great information!
Thanks so much for this excellent information! I’m not quite ready for a website makeover but I will keep this info for when I’m ready!
This was just what I needed to read, today, Marie! I have been toying with redoing my site and have a few ideas and sketches done. Love that infographic. Bookmarking this page so I can come back. Thanks!!
It must be that makeover time of year, Sherie. So many people are thinking about this now (including me) so I thought it would definitely help to share.
This is awesome Marie! Funny, I use gray scale with orange accent on my site too. Great post and infographic.
Hi Gorana, similar coloring choices myself: grey, white, and orange:)
Enjoyed the piece.
Myself, while orange is my favorite color, I relied heavily on the designer I engaged for my latest logo and web redesign.
A number of hours were spent in preparation. They included his interviewing me, what I wanted my brand to say, who I was, what my interests were. Then we both spent numerous hours visiting different sites in my area of expertise. For each, I let him know what I did/didn’t like about each.
In the end, it was a very rewarding experience on a modest budget that I’m very happy with.
It sounds like you had a great designer, JT. Finding someone who really listens and can help you find the best choices for you can really give your business a boost, not to mention helping create an image you can live with for a long time.
Oh, loveeeeeeeee to read about colors and what they mean. I love orange and purple, have for years. Thanks for sharing your wisdom.
The science/psychology of color has fascinated me for years, Mama Red. There’s always something new to learn–and purple has always been one of my favorites.
Love it Marie! I’ve begun looking into color schemes too so this is really great info for me. Thanks!
Isn’t it funny how so many of us seem to be on the same wavelength right now, Norma? I’ve heard from so many people that they, too, are looking at new color schemes and updates.
Thanks for posting this, Marie. I am a teacher of Light Language which makes use of color (I have a chart of the main 144 colors and the meaning for each). I will be setting up a new website soon, so I have been thinking about color and keeping it coordinated with my present site. I enjoyed reading the infographic!
So glad I could help, Meryl. Your color chart sounds interesting. I would love to learn more about that. It’s not something I had seen or even heard of before.
I never realised how colours had such distinct meanings. But I’m glad that I use a lot of blue and white in my logo after reading this!
Years ago I learned about what colors are best for my clothing. I look best in solid, deep colors like; red, hot pink, purple, deep teal, royal blue, etc. so I tend to gravitate to those colors. I chose the photos I wanted to use for my website.. one of me wearing a hot pink blouse and one of a scene of our house which included a lot of sky and trees. The trees led me to a deep forest green as a border. The main lettering matches my blouse. The blues bring out the sky. Also I knew that blue is usually a pleasant color for most people so I used various shades as background, etc.
I love color and get a little wild with it lol I did not know about about design seed and as I am thinking if a branding refresh I can’t wait to check it out!
Very interesting post, and I can’t wait to read more about your big changes! I love color but have not taken the time to really brand my business with them – it’s in my printed materials but not my website. So thanks for the push to start giving this some serious thought!
I just completed a site update which included the color scheme…and I happily report that my selection seems to have been appropriate!I just love color so making a long term commitment to one primary color can be a challenge!
I understand where you’re coming from, Carl. I have trouble narrowing down the colors, too. And by the way your site update looks great!
I love colour, but somehow every time I go to redo my website it ends up just another shade of blue. Although lately I’ve taken a liking to dark green and purple too. 🙂
It sounds like blue might just be your color. You should definitely try adding in some accents of other colors that appeal to you, but if you keep coming back to one color, it must resonate with you–and blue is just about the most popular color for business, so it’s definitely not going to hurt your site.
Excellent info-graphic! I will be re branding in a couple months and I will refer to this. Its cool though that the colors I picked do coincide with my marketplace 🙂
Great blog post, I use text with black writing white background, I keep it simple and it’s this simplicity customers love. Tried to make it quite generic and seems to work,,interesting to read that it shouldn’t,
Dark text on a white background definitely makes blog reading easier.
Marie, great article! My colors are hot pink, turquoise and lime green, colors that I feel are attractive to honey bees. Would the hot pink fall under red or purple?
My kids would say it definitely falls under red (my son says “it’s not pink, it’s lightish red.” I’d say it falls under whichever one it’s closest to. Fun colors! Lots of energy there.