Struggling to Choose the Right Brand Colors for Your Business? Let’s Fix It.
Choosing the right brand colors for your business might seem simple, but it can be a source of real frustration for many small business owners. Have you ever found yourself searching for and trying different colors, struggling to find something that feels right? If you have, you’re not alone.
If your colors don’t reflect your brand personality or feel inconsistent across various media platforms, it’s hard to show up confidently and attract the right clients. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
What’s really behind the struggle?
Here are the most common reasons small business owners feel stuck when it comes to selecting their brand colors:
1. Fear of getting it wrong
“What if the colors I select send the wrong message or turn people off?”
Many small business owners worry they’ll repel their ideal audience with color schemes that feel off-brand or unprofessional.
2. Too many choices and no clarity
“I like so many colors… how do I narrow it down?”
With so many color options, business owners can quickly get overwhelmed when there’s no clear framework for choosing a cohesive palette.
3. Inconsistent branding
“My website, social media, and logo all feel a little mismatched.”
Without a solid system in place, color choices often end up scattered and make your brand feel less polished and trustworthy.
4. Copying trends or competitors
“I just picked what I saw another brand doing.”
Without a strategy, it’s easy to default to what’s popular instead of what’s authentic to your business.
5. Struggling to match visuals with your brand personality
“I know how I want my brand to feel, but I don’t know which colors reflect that.”
You may have clarity on your brand values and voice — but you may not have the design knowledge to translate them into a cohesive visual system.
6. Lack of confidence
“It still doesn’t feel right, but I don’t know how to fix it.”
Even if you’ve chosen brand colors for your business already, you may still doubt whether they’re aligned, strategic, or scalable for your brand.
Sound familiar? If so, you’ve officially outgrown the DIY stage of your business. And that’s a good thing because it means you’re ready for the next step: to build a brand that feels intentional, professional, and trustworthy.
Why the right brand colors for your business matter
Your brand colors are more than decoration — they’re part of your visual brand identity design. Color plays a powerful role in how your business is perceived by others and how confident you feel promoting it.
When you select colors that align with your brand personality, your brand will benefit in many ways:
• Communicates your values at a glance
• Builds an emotional connection with the right clients
• Helps your brand feel consistent and recognizable
• Sets you apart from competitors
• Makes marketing easier and more intuitive
Most importantly, your brand visuals will feel like a perfect fit — for you and your ideal clients.
The crucial step before picking your brand colors
Before you start looking for a brand color scheme, you first need to have a thorough understanding of yourself, your business, your audience, and your brand personality. If you are unclear on any of these areas, please use my brand clarity workbook to help develop a clear vision for your brand. Establishing a brand strategy is vital to selecting colors that will work best for your small business branding.
The psychology of colors
Once you have a deep understanding of your brand personality, it’s time to take a look at the psychology of colors. Colors evoke certain emotional responses and associations in people. How we react to colors is not something we control — it is a function of our brains. Colors trigger various brain regions including the areas that control love, anger, fear, and even memories. Even the areas of the brain involved in producing mood-influencing neurotransmitters are involved. So, how we experience color varies according to our experiences and brain chemistry.
Despite our individual experiences of color, many studies have shown that some patterns have emerged showing how we generally perceive colors. Here are some key associations with various colors:
Red: Emotionally, red tends to evoke feelings of love, power, and excitement. It’s a stimulating color that can increase your heart rate and make you breathe faster. It has also been said to increase appetite. Some well-known red logos include CNN, Coca-Cola, Target, and Netflix.
Orange: This creative and cheerful color evokes feelings of friendliness, adventure, and affordability. Orange can also stimulate appetite. Brands using orange include Nickelodeon, Amazon, The Home Depot, and Penguin Random House.
Yellow: Frequently associated with the sun, yellow conveys positivity, hope, and optimism. With an eye-catching brightness, it is frequently used to attract attention. The human eye processes yellow immediately, which is why it is so effective. Famous yellow brands include Ikea, Best Buy, National Geographic, and McDonald’s.
Green: Green conveys freshness, calmness, and health. It is said to be the most calming shade to the human eye. A few famous green logos include TD Bank, BP, Whole Foods, and Starbucks.
Blue: This is the most popular choice among top brands. Light blue tends to convey peace and serenity, while dark blue shows authority, conservativeness, and tradition. Blue is frequently associated with the sky and the ocean. Brands that use blue in their logos include Skype, Samsung, Visa, and Intel.
Purple: Sophisticated and mysterious, this color is frequently associated with royalty and elegance. Famous purple logos include Taco Bell, Yahoo, Hallmark, and New York University.
Black: While you might not think of black as a color, it can be used to convey prestige, power, and sophistication. You may not see it often, but famous luxury brands, such as Lexus, Gucci, Prada, and Chanel use it to great effect.
White: People tend to associate white with purity, cleanliness, and simplicity. It is often used in conjunction with black for contrast. BMW, Intuit, and Puma all incorporate white in their logos.
What colors communicate
Color psychology can make your color selection process more strategic and less reliant on your personal favorites. Color selection becomes an easier process when you begin to understand how you want your brand to be perceived by your ideal clients and what color can help you achieve that. Here’s a quick breakdown of the emotions certain colors tend to evoke:
• Red → bold, passionate, energetic
• Orange → friendly, adventurous, creative
• Yellow → cheerful, optimistic, attention-grabbing
• Green → fresh, calming, grounded
• Blue → trustworthy, reliable, professional
• Purple → imaginative, refined, luxurious
• Black → sophisticated, powerful, high-end
• White → clean, simple, balanced
For example, my primary brand color is white, and my accent color is green. While these colors happen to be my personal favorites, there are specific reasons I chose them for my business:
White represents simplicity, clarity, and unlimited creativity — a sense of freedom.
Green symbolizes nature, authenticity, growth, and the idea of being one-of-a-kind.
These colors perfectly reflect my design philosophy, guided by the Japanese aesthetic principles of simplicity, the beauty of imperfection, and refined uniqueness.
The colors also reflect my brand personality and how I show up for my clients. I find that building a brand is similar to gardening in many ways. For example, when I am working with a client, no matter whether it’s a small or large project, I pay attention to the details and thoughtfully nurture my client through each step of the process — just as we would care for a plant to help it thrive.
Over the years, I have learned that every client has a one-of-a-kind story to tell. I try to bring that story out and express it through their visual brand identity design.
If you look at my website, you will likely notice that I use the color green more as an accent than as my primary color. For example, I may use a green button as an accent.
Why isn’t green my primary color? I like to use green as an accent to serve as a small reminder that every brand is unique with unlimited potential to grow.
As you can see from my brand, colors can help express your story and the larger meaning behind your brand.
Still unsure which colors are right for your business?
Start by asking yourself: What are your favorite colors?
Then, dig deeper. Why do you like this color?
Your initial response may be: “I don’t know, I just always liked it.” But keep drilling down and asking yourself why — why do you love it? If you keep going with this process, you'll start to uncover the keywords that define your brand.
Yes, you also need to consider the preferences of your ideal clients, but behind every color lies a reflection of your values and personality. By staying true to yourself, you’ll discover that the colors that align with your core values will also resonate with the core values of your audience.
This is where your brand strategy and personality come into play — and why seeking professional guidance can make all the difference in creating a truly cohesive brand.
The power of brand consistency
Selecting your brand colors isn’t just about picking pretty colors. It’s about creating a color scheme that can be applied consistently across your website, social media, marketing materials, packaging, and more.
Consistency builds trust. When all of your communications are cohesive, your audience is more likely to remember you and take you seriously.
If you’ve been stuck for months trying to figure out your brand colors on your own — or if your current brand doesn’t feel quite right — it might be time to stop guessing and start designing with intention.
A professional brand designer can help you. A professionally designed brand identity can boost your business in several ways:
• Clarify your brand personality
• Choose colors based on strategy, not just style
• Build a complete, cohesive visual identity
• Feel proud and confident marketing your brand
Ready to fix your brand colors?
Choosing the right brand colors for your business is a vital step to building a brand that reflects who you are and attracts those you’d like to serve.
If you’re ready to move past the DIY phase and invest in a visual brand identity that will help your business grow and realize its full potential, I’d love to support you with a rebrand or a brand refresh.
Together, we’ll craft a visual identity and color palette that feels aligned, confident, and clear.
Explore my branding services or get in touch to start a conversation.
Reference: http://www.joehallock.com/edu/COM498/preferences.html
