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The Science Behind Colors

The Science Behind Colors

Logo Design Color, Business Types & Qualities – The Science Behind Colors

Color plays a big part in graphic design. The colors used in a design can set a mood or drive home a point. Color can demonstrate strength or compassion, weakness or fear. It is important to consider the message you want to portray when selcting the base colors in your own logo design. Choose wisely and half your marketing job is done. Make a poor choice and you will regret the mistake. You can always change it later but it helps to get it right first time as this will save you money in the long run.

Let’s take a look at some colors that you could consider for your business logo design and explore some of the hidden meanings. The logo color chart below is not exhaustive but covers a large cross section of industries, professions, trades and qualities. Your specific business type may not be listed but you should see one that is a close match. Where a color is listed, like red for instance, this refers to red and it’s close shades like dark red and light red or deep red etc. It does not specifically refer only to the shade of red shown below in the chart.

 

BLACK:
Qualities: definite, credible, strength, powerful, precise, professional, direct, accuracy
Best for: construction, corporate, oil, financial, fashion, manufacturing, cosmetics, mining, marketing, tradesmen
RED:
Qualities: hungry, exciting, urgent, dangerous, sexy, evocative, romantic, design, warm, fast
Best for: food, clothing, fashion, apparel cosmetics, sports, real estate, entertainment, health care, caring, emergency services, hospitality, marketing, public relations, advertising
GREEN:
Qualities: natural, organic, youth, nurturing, instructional, education, adventurous, ecological, calming, nature
Best for: medicine, science, government, recruitment, ecological-business, tourism, human resources
BLUE:
Qualities: credibility, calming, clean, focused, medical, professional, judicial, power, business like
Best for: medical, scientific, utilities, government, health care, high-tech, recruitment, tradesmen, legal, information technology, dental, corporate
ORANGE:
Qualities: creative, dynamic, energetic, youthfulness, expressive, child-like, fruitful, innocence, enthusiasm
Best for: recruitment, food and drink, entertainment, education, sports, human resources, childcare
YELLOW:
Qualities: energy, drive, dynamic, encouraging, design, ideas, youth, invention, bright, positive
Best for: childcare, food and drink, entertainment, new technology, automotive, signs and banners, ecommerce
PURPLE:
Qualities: spiritual, mysterious, magical, arcane, religiousness, evocative, sensual, well being, occult, loving
Best for: body, mind and soul, astrology, tarot, aromatherapy, massage, yoga, arcane, healing, spiritual, occult
BROWN:
Qualities: earthly, nurturing, historical, safe, financial, tradition, conservative, reliable, retrospect, steady
Best for: construction, animals, mining, veterinary, finance, real estate, ecology
WHITE:
Qualities: clinical, clean, medical, clear, purity, spacious, simple, easy, fresh
Best for: medical, science, high-tech, dental

After deciding on your logo design colors you will need to make sure that the colors work well together. You don’t want to clash your colors in the logo because this might put people off. You need to make sure that the colors work well together because this will be more pleasing on the eye. Your logo will look more balanced and clean if the colors work for each other.

To select some complimentary colors, designers use color wheels and matching swatches. These are tools that produce scientifically proven color combinations that compliment one another. These color tools can be expensive but a free online one can be just as powerful for you as a “do it yourself” option. A very good one that we point clients to can be found here: Color Wheel. This link will launch a new window in your browser that contains an interactive color wheel. Use this color wheel in conjunction with the color chart and qualities and you will come up with a color combination that represents your business in the best light possible.

Don’t worry if you are a complete technophobe or if you just don’t feel confident using these tools. We are experts in color for logo designs and will produce your logo with the colors that best represent your business.

Logo Types

Logo Types

Illustration style logo design

Plus Points:

Illustrative logo designs are high impact with WOW factor and as such are very popular. Logo designs that are created using illustration skills are drawn out with pen and ink at the concept stage before digitizing. This means they are completely unique. Illustrative logo designs are also the best value for money because they require expert graphic design skills. Only real designers can work to this level of quality and skill.

Read the case study of Pirate Bay Coffee to see for yourself how our designers got to this completed design.

Negative Points:

Illustrative logo designs contain complex designs with many colors, traditional print shops can be expensive. Having said that, digital printing is fairly low cost and is the way the print industry is moving. This means that if you shop around for the right printer you will not pay a premium for printed materials. The Logo Company will be happy to work direct with your printer of choice free of charge. We can also recommend a print solution to you or you can use our own high quality business printing solution. Another negative is that at very small sizes your logo design may be difficult to read.

Emblem-iconic styled logo design

Plus Points:

The iconic/emblem type logo design is very popular with new businesses and high tech’s. The style is clean and very professional. The emblem/icon usually represents in some way what the business is about. The icon can also be an abstract that has a deeper meaning. Modern fonts, few colors and traditional layout work very well with this logo type. The text can appear to the right of the icon as shown here or can appear below or even to the left. Easy to print and to brand the business. Works well even at smaller sizes.

Negative Points:

Can go out of fashion very easily (Think ball and swoosh of the late 1990s early 2000s). Can be cryptic.

Text style logo design

Plus Points:

This is the design style preferred by Fortune 500 companies. It feels clean and strong and the design can last a lifetime. Easy to remember. Not based on fads and fashions. Designed well a text based logo design usually consists of more than just a standard everyday text font. The font would usually be rare and something would be done by the designer to make the logo intelligent and memorable. Often subtle. Very easy to brand and low cost to print.

Negative Points:

Lacks WOW factor and as such smaller businesses usually benefit less using this type of design.