A major item that trips up new biz owners after fonts is color. Sometimes they are drawn to their favorite colors but in reality those are sending the wrong message to their potential audience.
So, before you dive deep into the world of color let’s cover some things you need to keep in mind when crafting that perfect palette.
Contrast and Accessibility
I know, you might love those vivid colors or even pastels but if your pale pink is too pale it may be really difficult for your site visitor to see what you have on the page and this is a problem. Understanding and utilizing contrast in your color palette will make the world of difference to those who have vision difficulties or have their displays calibrated incorrectly.
We all know the contrast between white and black which is why it’s so widely used but you don’t have to limit yourself there. Having a nice contrast between light and dark isn’t as difficult as you think.
With this in mind, I have a simple hack to help you make sure your site is readable for nearly everyone.
Grab a screenshot. Open it in any photo editing program and change the settings to grayscale or turn the saturation all the way down.
Poor Contrast Example
Good Contrast Example
If you can still read everything on the page you are in the clear. If you notice things are difficult it’s time to address those issues and make some tweaks.
Emotion
Certain colors can change the mood, no doubt about that. From fun and cheery colors to dark and dismal and everything in between. If you were to sit and look at a warm color such as orange or red for a few minutes you will actually start to feel warm. Same goes with colder colors like blues and grays. A person will feel different whichever way you decide to go and it is important to think of the potential outcome of a color combination before moving forward with it.
For example, if you are a dentist then your site needs to look clean, professional and not too feminine. Pastels would probably not do so well here as a cleaner look would be better. Let’s think whites, neutrals and maybe some calming grays. Certainly we could use the calming factor when searching for a dentist! Ouch!
Now if you are children’s dentist you may want your site to be bursting with primary colors obviously because children are never calm! They want fun!
The psychology of color is intense and this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to color which is why I could go on about it for days! If you are itching to learn more about color and how to utilize it. I highly recommend checking out Color Design Workbook.
Mood Board
Before you piece together your brand color palette there is one exercise you can do that will make it so much easier. If you already know the emotion you want your visitor to feel go pull a photo that represents that emotion. I like to start with Pinterest or a Google image search for this.
I start searching and saving the images I feel will represent the emotion I am looking for in my visual branding.
After I have all of the images together I open up a template in Photoshop and place those images. This is so I can see the overall image in one unified place and make sure it is a cohesive experience. Once I have settled on that I pick my primary colors from the photo and make a list of the ones I would like to work with.
Narrowing the Palette to 3-5 colors
After you have your mood board in place you can start to pick colors you think will go together. I try to narrow my color palettes to one primary color, two accent colors and two neutrals. However, this could be streamlined to one primary color, one accent color and one neutral, depending on your brand.
If you are having trouble narrowing your palette or filling it out I have some pretty good resources to help you find and tweak your color palette.
3 Top Tools for Finding and Tweaking Your Brand’s Color Palette
Coolors
One of my favorite sites! I sometimes just visit this site and watch it put together amazing palettes as I keep tapping the spacebar. It’s like magical computer genies just *Poof* and make awesome color palettes with five colors!
They even have a tool that lets you test various color blindness issues so you can know right away how your colors will be viewed by others and once you find a palette you like you can keep it for your brand! Easy peasy lemon squeezy!
Adobe Color
Another one of my favorite color tools is Adobe Color. This offers a more traditional color wheel which gives you the ability to tweak colors and test your palette with color guides such as triads and monochromatics.
A big advantage to using Adobe Color is the ability to save the palette and open it across various Adobe Creative Cloud programs, say buh bye to copying hex codes from Illustrator to Photoshop!
Design-Seeds
Design Seeds is a bit different and I like to think of it more as a hub of color inspiration. Here you will find gorgeous photos and color palettes centered around those images. This is a great place to start if you have no idea what colors appeal to you or your target audience.
While this site won’t give you a single color palette for your visual branding it should give you inspiration and that is half the battle!
The Power of a Colored “White” Space
By now, you should be aware of “white” space, it’s essentially the breathing room on a webpage or graphic you create. Don’t let the “white” space fool you though! There is power in this space and despite the name, you can maximize any color here.
While using traditional white space can look clean and modern, using something like a bright pink can show playfulness while a dark navy can represent elegance. Changing the negative space with the same font and text over a graphic can give the image a totally different feeling.
Example of colored “white” space
Choosing colors for your visual branding doesn’t need to be a complicated process but it is something worth taking the time to think about and not just choose your favorite colors.
Like fonts, your color palette is just one piece to your visual branding puzzle but like fonts they both can play a major role that can make or break a site/business.
Great tips! I know when I was picking colors for my blog I wanted something warm, inviting, and not too feminine (despite me and my coworker both being women). We settled on a nice orange, red, and green with a flower logo! Now we’re just figuring out how to get more of those colors involved on our site, like in your social media widget on the side.
Depending on what you are using often you can just dig into the settings to tweak colors, but sometimes it takes a bit more and getting into the CSS file to tweak things.
I’d be happy to look over your site and offer some suggestions if you want, just send me an email contact@www.thecreativeboss.co