Color plays an incredible role in the importance of brand identity in a way that many casual observers often overlook. The thought process and intentionality behind the how and the why companies choose their respective colors require experienced, creative minds, and a lot of development time. These decisions are crucial and have a massive impact on the way eventual customers and users will view their business, both consciously and subconsciously.
To establish a relevant presence in the digital age, brands must translate their identity to their web pages, and a color scheme is one of the most significant ways that individuals searching for a company can verify authenticity. In this marketing breakdown, we’ll look into the undeniable influence of branding color choices and why translating these shades to the digital ecosystem can transcend the user experience.
Why Choosing a Color Scheme is Important in Web Design
When a brand implements a website for others to find information about its products or services, it needs to reflect how its customers see them in the real world. Whether it’s a new company or one going through a rebrand that updates the color scheme, a business must consider how its colors resonate with the consumer, industry, and the overall psyche of those who interact with it, even in its web design.
Brand Identity
As one of the many visual components that define a brand, the color scheme is arguably the most familiar. In combination with the logo and other discernable elements, the colors are intended to express meaning to the brand itself. Sometimes, these have personal or geographical ties, and others rely on industry trends and differentiation to attract attention. What’s even more imperative is that these colors are recognizable to their intended audience on digital mediums.
Competitive Advantage
If you’re a known brand in a particular sector, you understand how important it is to stand out from the competition. When you’re able to leverage eye-catching colors that align with your business, you gain ownership of that scheme, giving you a competitive advantage in a certain location or industry. This makes you identifiable and directly associated with the particular service you provide.
Consistency Across Mediums
Making sure that your color scheme is consistent and indistinguishable across various mediums helps everyone confirm the validity of the brand. When a website or app’s colors mirror those of the logo and traditional brick-and-mortar layouts, the digital experience will immediately feel familiar to the user. This shows interested parties that the brand’s overall presence is coherent and strong.
“You want to leverage what’s already in the space, but amplify the particular brand you’re creating for in a way that is going to compete appropriately.” — Paul Cooper, Associate Creative Director
What Goes into Deciding Upon a Color Scheme?
Developing inspiration for a brand’s color scheme is a complex task that requires key considerations. When deciding how to choose a color scheme for website aesthetics, here are five main categories marketing experts will take into account when creating a captivating design theme that’s both effective and memorable.
Color Theory
Perhaps the overarching concept in this whole discussion is color theory, which, in essence, is the guideline of principles that define what colors can be combined harmoniously in order to create a visually appealing and satisfying combination. Much of this is established through primary, secondary, and tertiary choices that come from the color wheel, and many times, other tints, tones, and shades are used to amplify this scheme even further.
Emotional and Psychological Connection
A well-documented aspect of marketing is realizing the emotional and psychological effects that these colors will inevitably have on the consumer or anyone interacting with your brand. Establishing a color’s relationship to the product or service you’re promoting and understanding how it will resonate with the user base is one of the most pivotal decisions you will have to make, and it can ultimately determine the fate of your brand.
Tone and Voice of a Brand
The colors you use for a brand can establish a cognitive connection to the industry you’re in before an interested party even learns about the nature of your business. Because each color code evokes a particular feeling, a brand must choose wisely, but there are certainly variations and exceptions that apply in some circumstances. For example, companies marketing to children may use quirky color combinations, while luxury brands elect for more neutral schemes.
Technical Components
Many people don’t realize the nuance involved in ensuring these strategic choices, especially when it comes to web development. Thanks to digital color codes, many hyper-specific shades are now available, and numerous programs exist to help designers play around with tints and tones to create a one-of-a-kind impression. Once these colors are selected, small changes can be made elsewhere, such as font style and online layout, giving developers the ability to translate these schemes across platforms and make adjustments to the front end more easily.
User Experience
All of this culminates in the user experience, which encapsulates how someone becomes familiar with a brand and how they will interact with it going forward. A color like green can effectively communicate that a company specializes in renewable energy, but using complementary colors like brown and blue to signify earth tones improves the meaning behind this coordination.
Having a defining color like yellow can help distinguish this is a solar company, creating a memorable engagement. When this is translated into the web design to reinforce the product or service as a visual, interested parties and customers are much more likely to remember a brand and form a connection between it and this color palette.
Why it Matters in Marketing
Color schemes are arguably the most vital unspoken component of any brand or organization. They speak in terms of the emotion they evoke and how that feeling is being received by the intended audience. Here are a few ways that a sound marketing strategy can embolden a business through its web design.
Current and Future Branding Goals
Brands understand the importance of a strong digital presence now more than ever. People are always searching for information on their phones, and whether they’re coming from Google or social media, loyal customers tend to return to brands that have a sophisticated presentation. Depending on the client at hand, a marketing team will need to assess whether making small tweaks and stylistic upgrades is necessary, or if an entire rebranding would be more beneficial.
Many times, this requires learning about the origins and inspiration behind a company on a personal level, then communicating their vision in a way that looks to draw attention to both those who are familiar with the industry and even those unaware of its name until it’s interacted with. In the end, you want to represent the brand in a way that defining, competitive, and congruent to user expectations.
“Clients occasionally have a brand, but the aesthetics haven’t really been completely established or flushed out at a level that really communicates their product or service in a way that looks elevated. Sometimes a completely new branding engagement is necessary to elevate their identity. And other times we pick and choose based on best practices that are going to really differentiate them within their market.” – Paul Cooper, Associate Creative Director
Industry Standards vs. Creative Innovation
It’s true: many industries do have a set range of colors they commonly use, but separating a client from the competition will always go a long way in standing out to your audience. When customers see subtle creative changes, they’ll begin to notice the intentionality behind a brand’s voice and goals. Many times, creative web developers will use their own intuition to make subtle, meaningful adjustments that truly help communicate a better narrative. Other times, they will learn and adapt style and other display tactics from competitors so long as the consumer benefits.
Ongoing Improvement Captivate Audiences
Again, audiences will notice the changes being made on a website, especially if it’s a company’s primary access point to learn about their products, services, or other crucial information. Making enhancements regularly to ensure no page on the site is out of line and continuing to modernize and refine how users engage with the presentation will ensure a harmonious experience when navigating the website. These types of quality interactions can singlehandedly sway people to become more loyal to a brand because they see the digital representation as clear and captivating, along with professional.
What Successful Color Schemes Accomplish
Developing a color scheme that’s well thought out and versatile in a way that makes it stand apart in the industry while being recognizable to consumers goes a long way. People don’t just want to be able to know a brand they use — they want to be able to identify with it. Having a cohesive palette that translates across digital mediums and causes users to register a certain emotion means the creative web design has accomplished its goal. With a clearly defined color scheme, you can differentiate from the competition and truly resonate with your audience.