How to Choose the Right Logo Colors: A Complete Guide for Business Branding

Your color palette is an important part of your brand’s identity, so designing your logo is much more than just selecting your favorite shades. Each color represents a different meaning and establishes a different emotional connection with the customer. 

The main goal here is to choose the best colors for your logo. It heavily influences your business reputation and image. Also, it will give a first impression of how people perceive your brand. 88% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand where they recognize its logo than one they don’t. 

In this article, we’ll dive deeper into learning more on how you can choose the right logo colors for your business, and make it stand out from competitors. 

Importance of colors in a brand’s logo 

Colors evoke an emotional reaction in humans. Each color has a different impact and represents something unique. This does depend on personal preference as well, but it does apply to a large percentage of the population. 

For example, if you spot a can of Sprite from far away, only by analyzing its colors, you realize what drink it is. That’s how important logo colors are. Here’s a quick breakdown: 

1. Instant recognition: Just like the Sprite example we gave you, a brand’s logo colors are what create instant reactions. Every time customers see your colors, they’ll know which brand it’s, which helps you stand out from your competitors. 
2. Emotional reaction: Colors do have an impact on your mind’s psychology. Therefore, choosing the right colors means creating an emotional trigger for your customers. 
3. Consistency: Using the same colors across different promotional materials creates a sense of consistency for your brand. 

Always remember that choosing the right colors for your logo isn’t about choosing what is best fit for you, but rather it’s seeing what kind of emotional triggers it has on your consumers. 

Start with black and white

As an initial step, it’s best to begin with black and white. Ideas will always be more memorable than colors, just like Apple’s bitten logo, Amazon’s hidden arrow, etc. Each individual has a different perception of colors, so when you start with black and white, this means you haven’t gone to the final stage of judgment yet from a consumer's perspective. 

However, this should only be the first step and doesn’t mean the final version of your logo. Here’s a good example using Apple’s logo. 

Decide how many colors you need to have in your scheme 

When you first use colors, you wonder what kind you need to define your brand. You can do this by examining color schemes. Three key elements of a color scheme for your logo design are: 

1. Color Psychology: Different colors encourage different perceptions and emotions, and this means that choosing colors that align with your brand’s audience and personality makes a significant impact. 
2. Contrast: There should be good contrast between colors so they are visible enough. High contrast helps logos stand out and remain clear at any size you view them from. 
3. Color harmony: Using harmonious color combinations helps logos appear professional and attractive. 

Each color represents a different feeling and will convey different emotions.

Use the color wheel to help you make your final choice 

When choosing the right color for your design logo, as an essential step, it’s best if you get help from the color wheel, which visually represents the relationship between primary colors and other shades. 

The color wheel is composed of different aspects, which include the following:

1. Primary colors: Yellow, blue, and red. These are unique colors and can’t be mixed with others. 
2. Secondary colors: Purple, orange, and green. These colors are created once primary colors are mixed. 
3. Tertiary colors: These colors are created once there is a mixture of both primary and secondary colors. They become violent or aqua. 

After the group of colors, you have two other groups of color temperatures, which include: 

1. Warm colors: Yellow, orange, and red. These colors will generate warm and energetic emotions. 
2. Cool colors: Green, blue, and purple. Give people a calm feeling.

Below you’ll find two examples with both warm and cool colors. 

The meaning behind each logo color 

Now that we’ve shown you a couple of things regarding colors and how they impact your logo, let’s break down what each color logo symbolizes. 

1. Orange: A warm and welcoming color that symbolizes happiness. If you are part of an industry that is fun or involves food and sports, orange is your ideal choice. 
2. Yellow: Symbolizes a friendly and cheerful approach. It’s a common logo color, and it’s hard to miss when you see it. For example, Mcdonald's uses a yellow color and when everyone sees the sign, they know exactly which brand it is. 
3. Red: Can either symbolize anger or passion and energy. It’s an eye-catching color and most commonly seen in the entertainment industry. 
4. Blue: A dependable color that shows reliability and trust. It’s often used for medical and tech logos. It’s a calming color and a popular logo that uses blue is Walmart. 
5. Green: Often associated with the environment and used in organic and natural brands. Green gives a clean and fresh feeling. Whatsapp has a popular logo that uses green and that easily comes to the mind of people.
6. Purple: Symbolizes royalty and wisdom. It’s a common color in many industries, especially in cosmetic brands and fashion. 
7. Pink: Gives an energetic look and is a color that is most used in the fashion and beverage industry. 
8. Gray: Gives a premium and neutral look. Gray is easily associated with any color and is used in many logo designs. The car manufacturer “Mercedes Benz” and Wikipedia is a common logo that is used when you show the gray color. 
9. Brown: Gives a strong look and one of the first things that come to mind when using this color is coffee, chocolate, and beer. 

Now that you’ve learned more about colors, it’s time to start narrowing down your options and pay close attention to your brand’s personality and how it links with your target audience. When choosing your color, it’s also important to keep in mind that culture plays an important role in color psychology as well. Cultures across different regions are different, so it’s important to do your research first.  

Learning more about color codes 

It’s important to remain consistent across all platforms like your desktop, print, and mobile. The way you can do this is by learning more about color codes. Let’s dive deeper into seeing what they’re all about: 

1. Hexadecimal: Six-digit number that is determined by three colors: red, green, and blue RGB. 
2. Pantone Matching System (PMS): Color inks that are manufactured by the Pantone Corporation. 
3. CMYK: Printing technique that mixes small transparent dots into four different ink colors: black, yellow, cyan, and magenta. 
4. RGB: Used to display color on-screen using green, blue, and red color combinations. 

It’s always important that you see how your colors are being displayed. Those displayed in print and digitally always differ. 

On print, you’ll be using CMYK and PMS color codes, while digitally, it’ll be Hexadecimal and RGB colors. 

Learn more about logo color combinations 

After you’re done choosing your logo colors, it’s now time to include them in your logo design. As a rule of thumb, it’s recommended that you don’t use more than three colors in your logo. Everybody has their preference on how colors work together, what looks good, and what doesn’t. 

Logo maker tools provide you with a predefined color scheme that helps you decide which choice you should make. However, let’s take a deeper look at color schemes: 

1. Monochromatic: Only includes one color, but it has different variations. This one color is used to create another. For example: Adding black to red, green to blue, etc. 
2. Complementary: Includes two different color groups. For example: Mixing cool colors with warm ones.
3. Triadic: Using three colors from the color wheel. 
4. Analogous: Colors that are next to each other in the color wheel. A good example is green and light blue, violet and red, etc. 

The more you know about color combinations, the better it’s for you to make a decision about which colors to use on your logo design.