Using Color In Your Online Business Branding
If you're working on starting a business, chances are you have quite a bit on your mind. There are financial aspects that must be sorted out—creating a business plan and marketing strategy, researching your competitors, and identifying your ideal customer. You're probably not too keen spending valuable time on graphic design. It's easy to neglect the look of your branding or business website when there's so much on your mind, but it's not a wise thing to do.
Your visual branding is very important. Making a good first impression on your customers is vital to earning their trust. One of the most noticeable aspects of graphic design is color. Choosing an appropriate color scheme is a must for your online business branding. Let's look at some tips that will help you get started.
Color Theory
You'll need to know a few basics about color theory to begin. Color theory describes how colors interact with each other, and the color wheel is a tool that organizes these relationships and interactions between the colors. The three primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. All subsequent colors come from mixing these three. Secondary colors include green, orange, and purple. Tertiary colors are more nuanced color mixtures like red-orange, blue-violet, yellow-green, and so on. The neutral colors are white, black and gray. Now let's move on to different types of color schemes so you can choose a design for your business site or brand.
Monochromatic Color Design
An easy color scheme to implement for beginners is the monochromatic color scheme. To create a monochromatic design, first select a color to be your brand's main color. Then use light or dark variations of that main color for the rest of your design. This keeps your entire design nice-looking and cohesive. Supplement this look with neutral colors and photographs of your choice.
Complementary Color Design
Complementary colors are located opposite each other on the color wheel. These colors include purple and yellow, blue and orange, red and green, and so on. Using a complementary color scheme makes your brand harmonious and bold at the same time. Some find this look too overwhelming for their business, though, and choose to use complements for certain aspects of their brand instead of the entire design.
Analogous Color Design
Analogous colors are right beside each other on the color wheel. Use this design to give your brand a soft and muted overall look. The colors you choose can be different colors altogether or variations of the same color. Analogous color schemes are also somewhat easy to pull off, but you might want to add in some complementary colors to draw attention to important aspects.
Color is a big factor in whether customers remember your brand. Remember that less is more in your graphic design and simpler things are easier to recall. Be consistent and make sure that your colors go with the values your business upholds so that your brand will be unified in all of its aspects.
If you need any help with your online business branding, don't hesitate to get in touch. We'd love to hear from you!
By Alyssa Rao
