How to Choose Colors + Inspiration Photos That Match Your Business - perfectly!
First impressions
As business owners, we’ve all been there - You have your business up and running, you know who you are, who you serve, and how you are the best at what you do…
But it feels like something is missing.
You find yourself comparing your business to others in your industry (or maybe even different ones), wondering how their message and their online presence are so attractive and compelling to potential customers, and why it feels like yours is falling flat.
The answer might just be a lot simpler than you’d think.
Before we notice your words, your services, or even your images, we’ll notice your brand colors.
And those colors are more than just an aesthetic, they are huge communicators.
Colors don’t only communicate the whole look of your brand, they evoke emotions (however subtle) within the viewer and can determine how a potential customer feels about your brand after a first impression.
And we know how important first impressions are!
Think of it, what is the first emotion that you associate with a bright stop-sign red, a pale ocean blue, or a bright sunflower yellow? It’s likely that you feel differently about each one, and can associate each color to a certain mood.
So, what mood do you want people to associate with your brand?
Your New Brand Look Or Makeover…starts here
You might think that the first step to branding is to make a cool-looking logo…
But it isn't.
What you really need to start with is choosing brand colors that are aligned with your personality and values. They will speak to your target audience first. It will set the tone and emotion that allows people to resonate with you or not.
How do you do that among endless color choices and combinations?
Simple.
You need to clearly outline your why, mission, visions, values, and target audience.
When you drive your business with this clarity, how you resonate with you ideal customer changes, your online presence and confidence altogether change too.
When done right, you not only come across with a competitive edge, you build trust, recognition and that is what leads you to work with clients instead of turning them away.
If you don’t have it figured out (yet) you can start right here with my Brand strategy questionnaire.
Create Your Brand’s Mood
With this moodboard template, you’ll be able to funnel all of your brand color ideas into one place. Gathering ideas for colors and noting the ones you like is a good start, but putting them all together in one organized place might just be the game changer that your brand needs.
You’ll be able to pick the color combinations that best represent the feeling of your brand, and save them in one neat place for use on all of your branded material. This won’t only save you time, but it will also make sure that you have consistency in your branding - which is so important!
Let’s get started!
Follow these 6-steps to complete your new moodboard!
Step 1: Get clear on your brand’s why, mission, vision, values and target audience.
You may already have this part done, but if you don’t I have a great brand strategy questionnaire to help you out! Even if you do, reflecting on this can help get the creative process going for the next steps.
Step 2: List your brand’s personality traits
Start to think of your brand as a person. What are they like? Are they shy or social, excited or calm, bold or simple? Think of all the words that you would associate to your brand’s personality and list them out. This will help you to tap into the feeling you want to get when interacting with your brand.
Step 3: Once you select your brand’s personality traits, you can look for inspiration photos that represent those traits, have ideal colors you like, texture you are looking for or scenes that you feel inspire your identity and what you do.
Pro tip: My favourite easy & free to use images sources:
*P.S. save the photos as a favorite but don’t go on to purchase them if they have royalties or fees, because they will not be used on your website. It is only to generate ideas.
Remember how colors can evoke certain feelings within us?
Now it’s time to make the connection between your brand’s personality traits and colors.
Step 4: Choose colors that are right for your brand – not necessarily your favorite colors.
(Be sure they reflect step #3)
This is your brand, after all! Which colors feel most aligned with you, your brand, and your mission? Remember that you can play around with the various shades and tones to get it just right.
Pro tip: Use this color psychology chart for inspiration!
Note: If you choose colors that are bright colors such as yellow, red or bright green for your brand, but your words are elegant, luxury - these colors wouldn’t make sense for your brand.
Pro tip: If the colors from your images are what truly works for your brand, then upload one of your photos in Canva Color Palette Generator and it will generate the colors for you.
If it is not spot on, then take a step further and use the color generator in Canva.
The color generator will provide you with a color code, known as a #HEX number. It will only be suitable for Web use not for print.
Step 5: Insert your chosen colors into the moodboard template using the #Hex color code.
You can copy this template multiple times, so get creative here. No need for perfection right away! I suggest making various copies with different color combinations until you find one that feels right.
Step 6: Save your moodboard for future reference
Save this final version of your moodboard to refer to whenever you create branded content. If you have a team who helps you with design, this will be great to share with them.
Congratulations!
You have completed the first step to recreating your perfect brand identity.
Share your moodboard! Tag me @designedby.ax in your IG story and let me know when you are done!
Each month I select a moodboard to win 10% off any one of my done-for-you service.
My goal is to perfectly capture, define, and illustrate the essence of your business so you can stress less about your online presence, and show up confidently every day while you focus on the work you love & growing your business.
Designed by Ax was born from a passion and drive to follow my dreams of helping build impactful brands through graphic and web design. When I first arrived in Canada from a small island in the Caribbean 6 years ago, I started to offer design services and worked with many clients from around the world. I eventually fell in love with branding, and here we are! My services aim to support entrepreneurs through creating flourishing brands that lead to big opportunities, especially within the African American community.