Build Your Brand — 01. Using the Color Wheel to Choose a Brand Palette

In this “Build Your Brand” series of blog posts, I’m pulling back the curtain for those interested in learning more about the nuts and bolts of brand design. If you are an entrepreneur who is DIY-ing your own brand, if you are curious about fundamental design principles and terminology, or could just use a Design 101 refresher, read on for some helpful tips on how to make meaningful, strategic decisions when it comes to the visuals you use to promote your biz.

Color theory was one of my favorite classes in art school. I LOVED mixing colors together to create beautiful gradients and unexpected palettes. I came to rely on the color wheel as super helpful tool for coming up with new combinations I wouldn’t have tried otherwise. Learning how the colors related to one another on the color wheel absolutely made me more intentional in my color selections and has helped me become a better designer on the whole.

In the graphics below, I’ve outlined a few fundamental color relationships and how they can influence the overall “vibe” of your brand.

MONOCHROMATIC

Using a single, signature color makes a very strong statement. It also makes your brand easy to recognize as people come to associate that color with your brand—think “Coca-Cola red” or “Home Depot orange”. You can create contrast within your designs by using lighter and darker versions of your signature color (“tints” and “shades”) or by lowering the opacity of the color in some areas to create a layered effect.

Analogous

Choosing 2-3 colors that live adjacent to one another on the wheel is an easy way to quickly build a palette of related colors bound to look amazing together. Analogous palettes tend to feel very harmonious and cohesive. They are a great choice for brands that want to impart a sense of stability and calm.

Complementary

Using colors on the opposite sides of the color wheel, known as complementary colors, will help you build a palette with a ton of visual interest. As these colors are natural “opposites,” they play off each other and create a dynamic, dramatic effect. Using two complementary colors as the primary hues in your palette along with a few others that result from the combination of the two main colors keeps this palette from being too garish or “Christmasy”.

TRIAD

A triad is a selection of 3 main colors that are equally spaced out around the color wheel. The most famous triad selection is red/magenta, yellow, and blue/cyan (sometime referred to as the “primary” colors, since you can mix almost every other color from these three). However, you can build a triad color scheme from any three colors that are evenly spaced around the wheel. Palettes using a triad scheme will tend to feel lively, energetic, and fun.

Split Complimentary

A split complementary color scheme is a bit more complex than the complementary scheme, because instead of using colors that are directly opposite one another on the wheel, you choose one primary complement and two colors that are directly to the left and right of the other complement. In the example above, I’ve chosen red, blue-green, and yellow-green, as well as some shades of those colors. Split complementary palettes are useful for creating an eclectic, unexpected look, and is one of my favorite color wheel hacks for coming up with a unique palette of colors that work visually together.

Next Post: the Psychology of color in branding

Although I’ve stuck mostly to warm colors in the diagrams of this post, these principles could apply to any palette that uses colors in these relationships. While the color wheel is an awesome tool to discover new color combos you might not have tried otherwise, color theory as it applies to branding also has a lot to do with our cultural and psychological associations of color. For instance, a warm analogous palette has a very different vibe than a cool analogous palette with blues and purples. On the next blog post, I’ll be talking about how colors effect our emotional response to a brand and how you can choose colors to effectively communicate your message.