Branding For Your Blog in Quick, Easy Steps: #4 Colour Palettes

Blogging Tips | Branding For Your Blog in Quick, Easy Steps: 4. Colour Palettes
Time for part 4 of my blogging tips posts where I’m doing some quick, easy tips on branding for your blog! This week I’m talking about colour, which is as much a part of branding as everything else I’ve written about so far. Get the colours right and you’ll be taking one more step towards a professional-looking, branded blog. So this week’s tip is simple:

 

#4 THINK ABOUT YOUR COLOUR PALETTE

Why is a colour palette important for your blog?

Like choosing one particular font or using the same avatar everywhere, choosing a colour palette and sticking to it will give your blog that look of cohesion, reinforce you and your blog as a brand and make you more memorable and recognisable wherever you appear.

Take a look at these famous logos as examples:

Famous logos with distinctive colour palettes
If you replaced the lettering on each logo with some other words you’d probably still recognise the brand. This is because the colours they use (and the fonts) are so synonymous with that brand that they’re recognisable as shapes, colours and fonts only. For example, if I’m looking for Coca Cola in the supermarket shelves I can see where it is from the other end of the aisle because I know to look for a mass of red labels. The colour we associate with the most well-known cola brand is red – it has nothing to do with the colour of the actual product itself.

 

How does colour affect how we perceive brands?

This fantastic article The Psychology of Color in Marketing and Branding states the following interesting facts:

“RESEARCHERS FOUND THAT UP TO 90% OF SNAP JUDGEMENTS MADE ABOUT PRODUCTS CAN BE BASED ON COLOR ALONE.

 

“PURCHASING INTENT IS GREATLY AFFECTED BY COLORS DUE TO THE IMPACT THEY HAVE ON HOW A BRAND IS PERCEIVED. THIS MEANS THAT COLORS INFLUENCE HOW CONSUMERS VIEW THE “PERSONALITY” OF THE BRAND IN QUESTION.

 

OUR BRAINS PREFER RECOGNIZABLE BRANDS, WHICH MAKES COLOR INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT WHEN CREATING A BRAND IDENTITY… IT IS OF PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE FOR NEW BRANDS TO SPECIFICALLY TARGET LOGO COLORS THAT ENSURE DIFFERENTIATION FROM ENTRENCHED COMPETITORS (IF THE COMPETITION ALL USES BLUE, YOU’LL STAND OUT BY USING PURPLE).

 

“NEARLY EVERY ACADEMIC STUDY ON COLORS AND BRANDING WILL TELL YOU THAT IT’S FAR MORE IMPORTANT FOR YOUR BRAND’S COLORS TO SUPPORT THE PERSONALITY YOU WANT TO PORTRAY INSTEAD OF TRYING TO ALIGN WITH STEREOTYPICAL COLOR ASSOCIATIONS.”

– Source (all)

Read the part about men and women having very different favourite colours. Bear this is mind if, like me, you have a mostly female readership.

 

How can I put the psychology of colour into practice on my blog?

You might be thinking that because you have a black text logo/header and a white background for your blog you don’t need a colour palette. One accent colour can make all the difference to making your brand stand out, so think carefully about whether you want to go completely monochrome.

There will be times you may need (or want) to choose a contrasting colour or two, even if your header and background are black and white respectively; for example:

  • Text links that are a different colour to the rest of your body text to make them stand out
  • Your Twitter background colour in your profile
  • Dividing headers in your sidebar
  • Your social media icons
  • Your lead image on a How-to / DIY / pinworthy post (one with text overlay)

How do I recreate the exact same colours each time?

What you are looking for is the HTML colour code. You may think you don’t know what they are but if you’ve ever seen a colour referred to as #489cdf, #c1b6ae or any other mixtures of letters and numbers (with a hashtag at the front) then that’s your HTML colour code.

The website http://html-color-codes.info/colors-from-image will find the HTML colour codes from any part of an image on your hard drive. Below is an example of how it works:

How to get HTML color codes from any image - www.html-color-codes.info
You can just play around and keep clicking certain areas until you find exact colours that you like. I used my avatar profile picture to choose colours for my colour palette, tweaked some them a little and added a few more (I used the eye dropper function in Photoshop, but it’s the same principle as html-color-codes.info.):

Not Dressed As Lamb | Avatar and colour palette
I have a cohesive, definitive set of colours that I can use for all my images, text overlay, links, etc. As my avatar appears in the top right hand side of my blog and is usually prominent on all my profiles and social media platforms, it made sense for me to use this image to pick out colours.

Don’t forget you don’t have to choose many colours like I have; two can be enough. As you can see above, Ikea uses two colours and Coca Cola uses just one – all to great advantage.

Do you have a colour palette already that you use – and how simple is it? Are you considering choosing colours to use consistently to brand your blog? Do let me know in the comments!

 

Catherine

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P.S. Like this post about branding? You might also enjoy Branding #1 Get a Favicon, #2 Use ONE Avatar or #3 Choose Just 1 (or 2) Fonts!

Linking up to: Let It Shine, Brilliant Blog PostsFriday’s Fab FavouritesSunday Funday

14 Comments

  1. 10 June 2015 / 1:35 pm

    I am not a full time blogger and earn a fair amount of moneywith my daytime job. So I can cheat and hire a professional. Which I do he he. But I have not stuck to this colour palette. Yet. Instinctively I have chosen limegreen and pink as my blog heading colours and added a blue. Pink with green has been my favourite flower combination since ages. But I haven't used it any further. I will think about it. Funny I need your nudge to start thinking, as all this is so familair, being in advertising.
    Greetje

    • 16 June 2015 / 12:46 pm

      Sometimes you need reminders about things that you know about in theory, Greetje – I know that I often learn new things to do with blogging (especially photography) and then realise I do know that information, but just haven't applied it…!

  2. 7 June 2015 / 1:26 am

    Keeping a cohesive look across all platforms makes so much sense, dearest Catherine…and – of course! – colour is a HUGE part of that!! But I have to say, the longer that I'm a blogger myself, the more impressed (and overwhelmed!) I am about everything it entails!! I think I need to win the lottery so I can hire someone to look after all this "technical" stuff for me; then I can focus on the BEST part…the outfits!! 😉

    http://www.StyleIsMyPudding.blogspot.com

    • 8 June 2015 / 10:00 pm

      Oh gosh I'd love to be able to hire someone too, Monika – how great would that be?!!!!!! A PA just for me, hehe ;))

  3. 28 May 2015 / 1:06 pm

    I'm loving this series Catherine!!! I use black and white as my main colours, with dashes of teal, hot pink, bright orange and yellow to accent. My logo is pretty simple, just the polka dots in those four colours, but I think it looks pretty memorable and it's very easy for me to replicate on Pinterest images etc! 🙂 xx

    Little Miss Katy | UK Lifestyle Blog

    • 4 June 2015 / 9:28 am

      Oh gosh Katy I LOVE the colours you use – they're so memorable and I'd recognise them as you anywhere!! Well done for getting such a clearly branded colour theme, and thank you – so glad you love the series! x

  4. 28 May 2015 / 6:05 am

    Such good advice. It is so interesting to hear and learn all these tips from an experienced blogger. It can be so overwhelming when you first start, especially if you are not confident with IT and website technical stuff like me. Thank you. Lorraine x

    • 3 June 2015 / 9:22 pm

      Lorraine that's so nice of you to say, thank you so much!!

  5. 27 May 2015 / 7:29 pm

    When I re-designed my blog I was looking after a color palette, but nothing stuck! But I had a particular vision for my header and the color palette came from the photo I used for the header. Then I used one of the colors from that image and used it to color my social media icons!
    Never thought to create a palette from a photo of mine! That's clever!

    • 29 May 2015 / 9:36 am

      Inspiration can come from anywhere, Anna – yours was a logical way to do it! x

  6. 27 May 2015 / 5:18 pm

    I am so keeping this post to study in depth.
    Thank you sooooooooooooooooo much, dear Catherine
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