How to Choose the Right Brand Colours for Your Logo

Choosing the right brand colours for your logo is a crucial step in creating a strong and recognisable visual identity. Colour has a powerful impact on how customers perceive your brand—it influences emotions, builds recognition, and helps your business stand out. In this guide, we’ll explore how to select the perfect colour palette for your logo, based on psychology, industry trends, and your target audience.

Why Logo Colour Choice Matters

Your logo is often the first visual interaction someone has with your brand, and colour is the first thing they notice.

Studies suggest that people form a subconscious impression within 90 seconds of viewing a product, and as much as 90% of that judgement may be based on colour alone. That makes your choice of colours one of the most powerful elements in shaping how your brand is perceived.

Your colour palette can:

Attract your ideal audience
Build trust and professionalism
Set the tone and personality of your brand
Influence buying behaviour

Understand Colour Psychology

Each colour has emotional and cultural associations. Here’s a breakdown of common brand colour meanings:

Colour	Emotion / Meaning	Example Brands
Red	Energy, excitement, urgency	Virgin, YouTube
Blue	Trust, professionalism, calm	Barclays, LinkedIn
Green	Nature, growth, health	The Body Shop, Spotify
Yellow	Optimism, warmth, friendliness	McDonald’s, Ikea
Purple	Luxury, creativity, ambition	Cadbury, Hallmark
Black	Sophistication, power, elegance	Chanel, Adidas
Orange	Confidence, enthusiasm, affordability	EasyJet, Fanta
Pink	Compassion, playfulness, femininity	Barbie, Boots (No7)

Use this as a guide to match your colours with your brand’s personality.

Consider Your Audience

Different audiences respond differently to colour, so it’s important to choose a palette that resonates with the people you’re trying to reach. Colour preferences can be influenced by factors like age, gender, culture, lifestyle, and even spending habits.

For example:

Younger people often prefer bold, bright colours that feel energetic and modern.
Luxury buyers may expect muted, monochrome, or minimalist tones that suggest sophistication and exclusivity.
Eco-conscious consumers are typically drawn to greens, browns, and other natural hues that reflect sustainability and environmental values.

Think about the age, values, lifestyle, and expectations of your ideal customer when choosing your brand colours. Aligning your palette with their preferences helps create an emotional connection and strengthens your brand message.

Study Competitor Colour Trends

Looking at what’s common in your industry can give you a useful starting point—but don’t be afraid to break the mould if it helps you stand out.

Every sector tends to lean towards certain colours based on the feelings or qualities they want to convey. Understanding these patterns can help you decide whether to align with the norm or choose something more distinctive.

For example:

Finance and tech brands tend to use shades of blue to signal stability, trust, and professionalism.
Health and wellness brands often favour greens or blues to suggest calmness, cleanliness, and a connection to nature.
Food and drink brands frequently use red and yellow, which are known to stimulate appetite and energy.

By identifying common colour trends in your field, you can make informed choices—either by following the visual language your audience expects or by deliberately choosing colours that set your brand apart while still feeling relevant.

Build a Balanced Colour Palette

Most successful logos use no more than two or three colours, keeping the design clean, professional, and easy to reproduce across different formats.

Your brand colour palette might include:

A primary colour – the dominant shade that represents your brand and appears most frequently.
A secondary colour – used to support or contrast the primary colour, adding visual interest without overwhelming the design.
An accent colour – optional, used sparingly for highlights, calls to action, or added emphasis.

Keeping your palette simple ensures clarity, consistency, and versatility, whether your logo appears on a website, product packaging, or a social media profile. A well-balanced colour scheme also helps maintain a strong, cohesive brand identity across all channels.

Explore Colour Harmony and Combinations

Understanding how colours work together is key to creating a visually appealing and cohesive logo. Beyond the individual meanings of each shade, the way you combine colours can help evoke emotion, build balance, and strengthen your brand’s visual identity. Here are some common colour harmony methods to consider when building your palette:

1. Complementary Colours

These are colours that sit opposite each other on the colour wheel (e.g. red and green, blue and orange). They create high contrast and visual impact, making your logo stand out. Complementary schemes work well when you want something bold and eye-catching—but it’s best to let one colour take the lead to avoid clashing.

2. Analogous Colours

These are colours that sit side by side on the wheel (such as blue, teal, and green). They’re naturally harmonious and give a calm, unified feel—ideal for brands that want to convey trust, stability, or connection to nature.

3. Triadic Colours

This approach uses three colours spaced evenly around the wheel (like red, yellow, and blue, or purple, green, and orange). Triadic palettes strike a balance between contrast and harmony, making them a great choice for brands looking to feel creative, energetic, and versatile.

4. Monochromatic Colours

A monochromatic scheme uses various tones, shades, and tints of a single colour (for example, navy, royal blue, and sky blue). This creates a clean, sophisticated look that’s easy to manage across different applications, and perfect for minimalist branding.

5. Split-Complementary Colours

This method involves choosing one base colour and pairing it with the two colours next to its opposite (e.g. blue with yellow-orange and red-orange). It offers strong contrast with a bit more flexibility than a strict complementary scheme.

6. Tetradic (Double-Complementary) Colours

Tetradic schemes use two pairs of complementary colours (for example, red and green with blue and orange). This results in a vibrant, rich palette—ideal for bold branding—but it needs careful balancing to avoid looking chaotic. One dominant colour, with the others used more sparingly, usually works best.

Always Test in Black and White

Your logo should remain recognisable, readable, and effective even when colour isn’t an option. This is important for practical applications like receipts, stamps, photocopies, merchandise, or when printing in black and white.

Test your logo in:

Greyscale – to check for contrast and legibility without colour.
Reverse – placing a light logo on a dark background (and vice versa) to ensure it still works in different settings.

A strong logo design should never rely on colour alone. Testing in black and white helps ensure your branding is versatile and professional across all formats.

Tools for Choosing Brand Colours

If you’re not sure where to start, there are plenty of free tools that can help you generate and test colour palettes for your brand. These platforms are great for exploring harmonious combinations, checking contrast, and building palettes that reflect your brand’s personality.

Here are a few popular options:

Coolors – Quickly generate palettes and experiment with different shades, tones, and combinations.
Adobe Colour – Ideal for building colour schemes based on the colour wheel, including complementary, analogous, and triadic palettes.
Canva Colour Wheel – Easy to use and helpful for beginners. You can test combinations and get guidance on colour theory basics.

These tools can also help you explore palettes based on keywords, emotions, or your industry, giving you a solid starting point for developing a professional and consistent brand look.

Need a hand choosing the right colours for your brand?

At Concept Fusion, we help businesses like yours create logos and brand identities that truly connect. Get in touch to see how we can bring your brand vision to life.

Your logo colour choices are far more than just a design detail—they’re a strategic branding decision that directly impacts how people perceive your business. When selected thoughtfully, the right colour palette can evoke emotion, reflect your brand values, and create a lasting impression.

Whether you're starting from scratch or refining an existing logo, make sure your colours speak to your audience, align with your industry, and remain consistent across every platform—from your website and social media to packaging and print materials.

A well-chosen colour scheme doesn’t just make your brand look good—it makes it memorable.

FAQs

What are the best colours for a logo?

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. The best colours for your logo depend on your industry, audience, and brand personality. Blue is often used for trust, green for nature, and red for energy—but the key is choosing colours that align with your message.

How many colours should a logo have?

Should I avoid certain colours for my brand?

Can I change my brand colours later?

What’s the difference between RGB and CMYK in logo colours?