Do the Colours Of Your Logo Really Affect Your Brand?

Logo designing sometimes becomes a big fuss, especially when it comes to colours. Everyone gets picky and have their own choices. And these choices are not baseless as there are tons of reasons for which colours to chose.

Whenever we design a logo for a business, our clients either want to have some specific colors or want us to decide what colors to have. Either way, we go, we have to go through multiple rounds of reviews as a green color can have more than 1000 shades of green or maybe 100,000?

And then we come down to color combinations. Can a green go with a red or a yellow? No, then maybe purple? My last three sentences are literally picked up from logo design review emails we get from our clients.

So we spend quite a lot of time deciding the logo colors and then rejecting our own decisions. And why not? The logo is going to reflect our brand image. And that is 100 percent true.

But let’s clear some confusion here. What exactly reflects the brand image – logo or its colors? Am I trying to say that we can do with a colorless or a white logo? Certainly not. Of course, the logo should have some emotion evoking colors and should be able to strike a chord with your audience.

But at the same time, logo colors are perhaps not a very big factor. For this, let’s think of the big brand logos we know. Sony, Apple, and Mercedes Benz are the three logos that come to my mind. So what color are their logos?

I have seen their logos mostly white in color or they use chrome when they want to. When printed on white, they also use Black color for their logos. Aha! so now we suddenly have big brand logos that do not have any specific colour.

On other hand, we have big brands like coke, pepsi and Mcdonalds who always stick to their logo colours.

Does this mean using specific colours in logos is optional? The answer is yes. You can be very flexible in the way you use colors for your logos.

Companies that have set specific corporate or brand colours could choose to use those colours in their logos too.

Going back to the main agenda, do logo colours really affect the brand? And if they don’t, then why do companies put so much effort into it?

The answer is, your logo colours affect your brand to some degree but not entirely. This is because brand building happens when you use your logo or brand colours extensively in your business.

You cannot expect a great logo design sitting on your business cards to go out and build your brand image. You have to do it yourself by bringing your logo and brand colours in all aspects of your business.

The more you do it, the stronger your brand image becomes.

If you want to work towards building a strong brand image, you may want to read my blog on how to use your logo for maximum visibility and brand image.