Branding: Color
Some people in the marketing or advertising world like to think the word “branding” has some special, magical meaning. I’m sure that for large, multinational corporations, branding is very important. I’m not sure branding has any mystical quality. For small to medium-sized nonprofits branding is really quite elementary. To me it’s nothing more than a simple set of tools used to make your organization memorable. Branding doesn’t have to be any more complicated than a logo and a set of two or three colors you consistently use on your website and on all your printed material. That’s it.
Let’s take a look at some ways to pick a memorable color scheme that fits your organization’s personality and creates a brand identity
If you’re a person who is good with color, then simply pick colors you like. Many people have experience with crafts, visual arts, home décor or other artistic pursuits. Many artistic, creative people are well suited to picking colors that are pleasing to the eye and that will represent your organization well.
Take a look at some web site templates. Web site designers put a lot of thought into color and you can benefit from their hard work. (http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/08/100-excellent-free-high-quality-wordpress-themes/)
(lemon twist theme) This light green coupled with the dark green is not my cup of tea but maybe if you’re part of an environmental organization this works for your mission.
(adreu2 theme) I like these two basic blue colors. They are neutral and pleasing to the eye. The light green accents look good too, probably because they are only used to set off a few parts of the site.
(autumn) Here’s a site that uses a rose color with tans, goldenrod, green, lavender, and white. I think this color combination evokes childlike images. I think these colors would be great for a nonprofit that serves children.
Microsoft Publisher has a lot of pre-defined color sets. (video of exploring and commenting on a brochure template)
Here’s a color scheme generator at colorspire dot com. (http://www.colorspire.com/)
Let’s say I want my base color to be blue. Move the slider up and down on this color bar until you get blue. The brighten button moves the little target circle toward the top. The darken button moves the target toward the bottom. The saturate button moves the circle toward the right where there’s more blue color and desaturate moves the target to the left where the color gets more washed out. Click each of the five boxes on the upper left to see how a set of colors might look on a web page. Click the random button for fun.
That’s just a brief survey of colors and how you can pick a few to help brand your organization. The concept with colors is the same as your logo, the simpler, the better. What’s more important is to remember regarding colors and branding is to use your color scheme consistently across all your electronic and printed marketing materials to help make and keep your agency memorable.
Thanks for watching, for Mission Marketing, I’m Chris Howell.
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