Color is a power that directly influences the soul. – Wassily Kandinsky, Russian Painter.
Admittedly, without science, we wouldn’t enjoy the true essence of color today. It is what gives vibrance to works of art and the world around us.
The different hues and shades make art copy reality and exaggerate it at will. As artists and designers, the color wheel is the most basic concept that one can learn.
But why do we need to know its origins and how to use it well?
Color Me Curious
Newton, Goethe, and Munsell Color Wheels
Let’s backtrack a bit and see how much the color wheel evolved through the ages. The first wheel came into existence at the hands of Sir Isaac Newton in the 17th century.
He experimented with a prism during the isolation because of the bubonic plague. He countered the norm thought of color being a mixture of light and dark with red or blue. Red produces “most light,” and blue creates “most dark.”
Newton found out that white light consists of the colors of the rainbow we know today: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. He drafted said colors in an octave schema, and it became the first wheel.
The founding prompted the discovery of secondary colors. The mixtures of primary colors became hues. Thus, a wheel emerged and incorporated such colors.
But four years later, a painter by the name of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe disagreed with Newton. Instead of darkness being the absence of light, it was an active agent in creating color.
In the wake of 1810, Goethe published Theory of Color. Despite its lack of mathematical concepts, it became the cornerstone of what we know about color today.
Theory of Color explained how colors evoked certain emotions upon the sight of them. It also tackles how color depicted behavioral traits. But also how humans discern color because of the effects of light and dark.
Furthermore, Goethe’s wheel resembles those that we use today. Though the theory was then again expounded by Alfred Munsell, an American painter.
He devised a method of teaching color efficiently by adding a system to it. Hence, chroma and color values came to life.
Chroma pertained to the intensity of color, while color value referred to the lightness and darkness of a particular color.
Also, Munsen created a color tree to explain color space further. The z-axis represents the hue, the y-axis is the color value, and the x-axis is chroma.
It’s a 3D representation that precisely plots where a specific color is by its coordinates. After all, Munsen intended the color tree as the basis of art education, optics, and color mathematics.
And there you have it, a long history of how the color theory came to be. It’s been a long journey, but how exactly do we add it to design and branding?
Techniques to Manipulate the Wheel
Harnessing the full potential of color for your branding takes time and energy. Branding is how the masses perceive you, how your design makes your audience feel when they see it. It’s the tug on the heartstrings that matter.
Around 93% of consumers put a high value on color and visual presentation. When buying a product, 85% say that color is a huge factor.
For this reason, we created a comprehensive guide just for you in three easy steps.
1. Research, My Friend
You need to know the different types and what palette the competition has when it comes to color.
Here’s a brief of the different harmonies:
- Monochrome: Single Color with Various Shades
- Complementary: Colors that are Opposite to Each Other on the Color Wheel
- Analogous: Colors Adjacent to Each Other
- Triadic: Three Colors that Have Equal Spaces on the Color Wheel
Take your pick. Mix and Match. You’ll get the design that you desire while being the most beautiful online.
Take note; it’s great to look at the direct competition to see how they implement their colors and design on every platform.
But don’t copy, be inspired. After all, each niche has its symbols that represent them significantly. It’s also great to learn which visual hierarchy works best for your brand.
2. Learn Color Psychology
It’s the association of colors and the emotions they evoke in a particular product of establishment.
For example, red is power or, for food chains, hunger. Ever look at famous brands like McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and the like? They have a predominantly red color on their logo and merch. It evokes hunger.
Or when you look at the sleek logo of Twitter, Meta, then known as Facebook, and LinkedIn, they are mainly used as communication platforms.
And on the other hand, cool in a way, like prompting you to relax when you use them. Though for LinkedIn, the populations are more professionals than leisure.
How about pink? You instantly think about something girly, easterly, or a bunny. Association is powerful; keep that in mind.
Here’s a semi-full list to get inspiration from:
- White: Exudes cleanliness, simplicity, innocence, honesty.
- Blue: Expresses trust, peace, loyalty, competence.
- Green: Emanates healing, nature, freshness, quality.
- Brown: Shows dependability, ruggedness, trustworthiness, being simple.
- Yellow: Displays creativity, happiness, warmth, cheer.
- Orange: Embodies bravery, confidence, sociability, success.
- Purple: Exhibits royalty, luxury, spirituality, ambition
- Pink: Manifests compassion, sincerity, sophistication, being sweet.
- Red: Represents excitement, love, energy, strength
- Black: Stands for being dramatic, formality, sophistication, sincerity.
Either way, knowing the emotions incited by specific colors will aid you in the overall brand identity you want. But you could mix and match since the meanings are interchangeable.
It’s the elements that you want to focus on too.
3. Mock-Up Trials
When in doubt, make sure you try to visualize your chosen color and elements together. Put them on merchandise, ask around.
The design has to be applicable and distinct in your:
- Website
- Merchandise
- Logo Design
- Uniforms
- Store Design
- Ads
Make sure that you exhaust every possibility you have to make your design dynamic. Ask yourself these questions to help you:
- Is the chroma too intense that it would bleed into the fabric?
- Are the colors I want analogous or monochromatic?
- Who is my audience?
- With one look, would it be identified?
Design with Color Today!
Now you know how to brand with color successfully. Use this knowledge to get ahead of your competitors and become a household name!
But we know sometimes it’s hard to concoct the perfect logo and design to embody your business. That’s why we’re here.
We not only want you to learn. But if you’re positively stuck, you can hire designers from our community here at DesignCrowd. You can host a design contest and pick which one you want.
Or you can design one yourself with our logo maker at BrandCrowd today.
Don’t miss out on making your online presence known, create a design with a unique palette and elements today!
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Written by DesignCrowd on Monday, November 15, 2021
DesignCrowd is an online marketplace providing logo, website, print and graphic design services by providing access to freelance graphic designers and design studios around the world.