Nail your colour palette

How important is the right colour palette?

Getting this right is vital to communicate the appropriate look and feel for your brand. A children’s entertainer would look pretty dull if the logo was brown and black, and would you hire a solicitor with neon green and pink stationery? No matter how effective your logo design is, a brand can lose its appeal and won’t communicate to the right audience if the colours aren’t suitable for your audience and how you want to be portrayed. It’s not an easy task, although an experienced graphic designer will be able to provide a structured colour palette that works in harmony and gives your organisation the personality it needs. If you’ve been tasked with choosing colours for your business however, there are some basic rules you can follow to avoid everything looking like a cross between Timmy Mallet and Mr Motivator (look them up kids).

Avoid using too many colours

Sometimes it’s hard to choose which colours to stick with and as a compromise you end up using them all. An experienced graphic designer may be able to create bold and colourful colour palettes for the right situation that work in harmony and look great, however, this is really quite difficult to achieve. A safer bet is to stick to 1 or 2 main colours throughout and perhaps a couple more to use sparingly as accent colours. A good rule of thumb can be taken from the 60-30-10 interior design rule. This rule encourages you to use a main colour 60% of the time, a secondary colour 30% of the time and then an accent colour 10% of the time and achieves a well balanced look.

Take it easy on the saturation

The marketplace is a crowded space and you really want to stand out. Often the first thought is to dial up the saturation (how intense a colour is) and brightness of your colour palette in order to catch people’s eye. Overly saturated images can be jarring and look unnatural. With type this can cause even bigger problems and actually make things harder to read.

Get the contrast right

Contrast is essential to ensure your message is legible. A quick way to check how clear your text is, would be to print it out in black and white. If the shades are too similar, then there’s a good chance there isn’t enough contrast when in full colour. There are also online tools available such as https://contrastchecker.com/ to ensure your text is readable on screen. Not everyone will have perfect vision or a good quality monitor, so this is a good option to use and to make sure you are communicating effectively and clearly with your audience.

Balance your colours

Getting your colour balance right is a bit more difficult but there are guidelines you can follow to help. It’s a good idea to keep colour use from one section of the colour wheel. Using them from opposite sides will really stand out but can be too vibrant and there is a danger you may end up with the same problems we discussed when dealing with saturation. You’ll need an eye for colour to end up with an appealing palette but there are online tools such as https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel to help. Here you can input your main brand colours and use the colour wheel to create a full, balanced colour palette.

Summary

Getting your colour palette right is not an easy task but by following these rules you can avoid turning people off and burning their eyes in the process.

• Keep your colour palette small and simple.
• Take it easy on the saturation, bright is good up to a point.
• Be careful with your contrast, too much is jarring while not enough can be illegible.
• Group colours carefully and use online tools if you’re not confident.