As if managing overheads, rising capital and outfoxing the competition isn’t hard enough, anyone looking to build a successful brand, needs to traverse the depths of good and bad design. From the logo to the kerning on your company profile, every visual element you produce says something important about your brand. Of all the components that make up a great brand identity, none is more conspicuous than the colour scheme.

A brand’s colour scheme is the first thing that jumps out at you, grabs you by the eyeballs, and says-hey look at me! -Before you read the punny brand name; or register the intricacies of their minimalist logo, you say, “Wow that lumo green is really…bright!” Whether you are aware of it or not, your brands colour scheme speaks volumes about what you do and how you do it.

We have all been conditioned to associate certain colours, with certain messages, when the light turns red we know that we should stop. The right colour can communicate a message in an instant, because of the preconceptions we developed about colours; we do not need to be told that red means stop each time we reach a set of traffic lights. This subconscious communication not only applies to traffic signals, but transcends every facet of our daily lives, including the brands we interact with, Consider for a moment that you swing past the store on your way home from a long day, and you decide to get some of your favorite soda. As you approach the drinks aisle, you instinctively reach for that iconic red and white bottle. Sitting there amongst the hoards of multi-coloured soft drinks. That red and white colour scheme pulls you in and reassures you – “there it is, there is the brand I trust”-That is the power of colour.

The right use of colour, not only differentiates you from the competition, but it also helps to build perceptions about your brand. A clean white on black logo says something radically different from a logo executed in hot bubblegum pink. In fact a study by the University of Loyola, Maryland shows that the use of colour can increase your brand recognition by a factor of eighty percent, whilst a staggering sixty percent of the time, a potential customer will decide if a brands message is attractive, based on their perception of the brands colour.

So the next time you feel the need to quench your insatiable thirst for fizzy soft drinks, ask yourself why you choose to reach for the familiar red and white branding of a classic Coca Cola. Is it the taste? Is it bottle? Or maybe you REALLY want to “open happiness “, or maybe, just maybe you choose to forsake all others, and swear undying loyalty to a brand, simply because that particular shade of Pantone 484 appeals to you on a profoundly deep level that no other brand can…Think about it.