Now, more than ever, we, humans, are visual beings. Our eyes scroll through thousands of information every day, and we keep being hungry for great visuals to get us inspired, productive, entertained, excited. Right now, telling a perfect story with visual digital tools is the most important part of getting your message across and attracting more people. Every color is a story – what role colors play in this game and how can they help you speak to your audience?
White
White is known as the Switzerland of colors, neutral and universal. White is the color of virginity and pacifistic state of mind used most often in logos as negative space or text. If you combine it with dark blue, you get the world’s most famous logo – Facebook, and when you add red, you get the logo of Pinterest.
Yellow
Yellow can suggest different things, depending on what you combine it with. It can be cheerful and infantile, sunny, full of light and warmth. It is easy to get attention using this color, and it is the most popular color of the season. Darker versions are shining with credibility in IT or creative industries.
Orange
A true foodie color used often in the food industry logo (tasty food, fast deliveries, nice ambiance). Often used as a gradient color between red and yellow, to draw attention and stimulate urgency and alert mode. Just as yellow, orange is playful and warm, emotional color.
Red
Vibrant, strong, dominant and bold, this color gives character to your logo design. Red can be used as a color of heat, danger, alarm, and hostility, but at the same time for love, care, passion, and blood. Whatever aspect of red you are using – it will leave a strong impression. Red is known for raising people’s blood pressure and making them hungry. It’s most known for its role in Youtube and Mc Donald’s logo, combined with white and yellow.
Pink
Pink has always been a girly, Barbie, color. It unlocks deep feelings, tenderness, understanding, love, femininity. It also interacts as a color that represents youth, virginity, tidiness, beauty, style, well being. Industries it takes place are beauty, health, and fashion. On top of these applications, pink is a sweet, sugary color, so it is often used to advertise candy or ice cream. For example, it is used in Flickr, in combination with light blue.
Purple
This magical color is one of the transeasonal colors we have written about before, which means it is always popular and always a good choice. It is a silver lining between cold features of blue, and all the warmth and heat from red. It’s used to describe fancy, royal, sophisticated brands, especially in the industries used by women. Purple is also known for it’s mystical and spiritual properties, useful for making people hooked and intrigued. If you like chocolate, it can also be delicious. Yahoo! uses purple combined with white.
Blue
Giving a cold shower to your audience is only possible with blue. Blue is your asset for cold and calming stories, showing security, reliability, and professionalism. Also, it is one of the most-loved colors in the world. Used mostly in medical brands, it leaves the impression of success. Just under yellow, blue is the most trendy color of this season. Fun fact: blue pigments are almost impossible to find in nature and synthesize. Used by popular brands such as Skype, Twitter, and 4square, all three in combination with white.
Green
Green is the color of tomorrow! It represents nature, the Earth, rebirth, and healthy human behavior. Used mostly in circle formats, it stands for life and preservation. In other contexts, it can come across as naive, insecure and liable. However, the most common use is for ecology purposes and social responsibility.
Brown
Also an Earthy color, grounded, calm and stable, this color is used for furniture companies logos, but also real-estate and commerce. Natural and woody, this color is also well-known for cocoa and it’s implications of chocolate and deliciousness. Brown is also warm and close to dark red colors, but dark enough to become neutral, like black.
Gray
Very fancy, stylish, and cold, gray is used for frames, thin lines, and backgrounds. Sometimes, dark versions of gray are used in logo design to avoid pitch black. For any color and tone you choose – there is a shade of gray that matches it perfectly! If you need a neutral color, I would always recommend using a shade of gray instead of white or black. Wikipedia highlighted the use of gray in combination with white.
Black
This color is antagonistic, mostly used for its readability on most backgrounds. It is extremely powerful, especially since it’s simple and smooth, as well as sophisticated. It is often used in logos, but mostly for shapes and word art, in combination with yellow (IMDB), white (Apple) and green (Starbucks).
I hope you feel better prepared for your logo design and are ready to mix exotic colors up!
Author: Nina Petrov, ninapetrov.com