How to develop a successful color palette for a brand

Color is sometimes the last thing companies think about, but it shouldn’t be. In the excitement of designing and marketing a product to new customers, color can get lost and become an afterthought.

Companies with a great range of beautiful products often contact me, but when all those items are grouped together on a table, they look like a dog’s dinner. Sometimes, this is a branding issue, but often, it can be fixed by developing a decent brand color palette and coherently applying that color. Let’s look at how to do just that. Whether you’re working on an in-house branding project or you’ve been commissioned to create a color palette for a brand, this guide to developing a color palette is for you.

Two companies I’ve worked for in the past, Hydroflask and Saucony, occupy a similar space in retail because they are sporty, outdoorsy brands—but that’s where the similarity ends. Hydroflask makes drinking bottles, and Saucony makes sportswear. When it comes to color, customers have a very different mindset when they buy something that covers their body compared to something that goes in their bag.

If you’re coloring small items, you can sometimes apply a brighter, more adventurous brand color palette than if you are coloring a T-shirt that covers a much larger surface area. Price is also a guide. Smaller items tend to be cheaper, so you can have more fun with color because it’s less of a financial commitment for the customer. Think about a pair of flip-flops. Most people are happy to pick up a pair of brightly colored Havianas but less happy to buy that same color in a hiking boot. Size matters, and so does price.

Products don’t exist in isolation. They’re often merchandised in a physical retail store or online, and they must all look nice when lined up together. This is where color palettes become tricky. It’s all very well picking out lovely colors and popping them onto the product willy-nilly, but those colors must be friends. They need to speak to one another and look happy together when they sit on a shelf or hang on a clothing rail with their family. So, you’ll need to take color theory into account.

Crucially, they also need to work with other colors from past palettes as product lines flow in and out of shops during seasonal changeovers. We’ve all walked into a store where the sales racks are positioned next to the new seasonal items displayed at full price. If the color palettes on those two rails differ, the disconnect can be jarring and devalue the brand. The brands that do an excellent job of flowing products in and out of their stores have color palettes that communicate across all seasons.

A brand color palette can be divided into seasonal and long-term (or foundational) colors. Seasonal colors reflect color trends and are often used in PR shoots. They’re eye-catching and feel new. Their job is to be the celebrities of the palette.

Foundational color should be just that: a foundation for the brand. These are your old faithful, your best friends that you know will work season after season and merchandise happily with previous and future seasons. For many companies, this means a good black, a decent navy, a neutral white, and a selection of grays. These are the colors we know and feel comfortable with. They are often overlooked, but they shouldn’t be because they do the donkey work and carry the rest of the palette.

I live in London but often work for companies that sell and are based elsewhere on the planet. Color means different things in different places. A palette for December/January means something different in Australia than in England. It’s cold, dark, and wet in the UK in the winter months, affecting the kinds of colors people want to buy. In Australia, it’s sunny and bright during the same months, so it’s essential to make sure you know what the weather will be like when your colors hit the shops.

There are other cultural differences and a few absolute no-nos. In the West, for example, green is generally associated with positive things—renewable energy and a planet-positive agenda. In Indonesia, green is described as a ‘forbidden’ color associated with religion, often seen as a color that mere mortals shouldn’t wear. It’s helpful to be aware of these cultural variations if you’re coloring up a product that will be sold in a different area from the one you’re familiar with.

One of a company’s most significant mistakes is having a vast color palette comprising hundreds of color references. This is a bad idea for several reasons. Firstly, for clothing brands, it’s more economically and environmentally friendly to dye batches of fabric in the same color rather than cooking up new dye recipes every five minutes. That’s why it’s so important to develop good-quality shades (those old faithful) that will see you through season after season rather than developing something ‘same-same but different’ every few months.

Secondly, a tight palette with fewer color references says something to your customer. It reassures them you know what you are doing and that you have made the right choice for them. Imagine walking into a store and seeing a million items in every hue under the sun. It’s hard to be presented with so much choice. We need brands to have the courage to curate for us.

Keep your color palettes as small as possible, choosing shades that can be shared across different products. Your efforts will be rewarded. Your products will hang well together, and your customers will appreciate not having to choose between fifty shades of red.

Building a sound brand color palette balances what your brand needs and the customer wants. As a color forecaster, I sit in the middle of this relationship and act as a mediator. Color forecasting is often seen as something witchy or magical. I view it as a problem-solving exercise that essentially boils down to three things: each color in a palette must prove its worth; less is more; longevity is good. Get some inspiration from our posts about holiday color palettes and color palettes to evoke emotion, and then visit Envato to pick up all the creative assets you need.