[This is from my newsletter, Creative Intelligence. Sign up here to get future issues emailed to you as soon as they come out.]
Color is an incredibly effective tool for brands. It is one of the first qualities people notice, and a dominant factor in purchasing decisions.
When color is used well, it has huge benefits for brands, including:
* Creates brand identity and distinction,
* Communicates purpose and personality,
* Elevates brand positioning,
* Drives messaging and storytelling,
* Builds emotional connection with the consumer community
* Increases sales
Given its impact, choosing the right colors for a brand is critical. Following color trends and identifying the key ones that will resonate with customers is paramount. If you’re responsible for deciding a brand’s color, you need to be in tune with how its consumers’ preferences and perceptions are evolving. You need to be aware of how larger macro trends are influencing color shifts and how (and if) those trends should be integrated into your brand’s color strategy.
Knowledge of color trends is a significant part of choosing the right colors.
But it’s not the only part.
Another crucial part of choosing the right colors, is understanding a brand’s seasonal color opportunities. Color opportunities are the places in a brand’s palette and product line that will have seasonal change or growth. They are the areas that will actually need and use new color. They are the places you need to tailor your seasonal color evolution to because they are the only places where new color will be applied that season.
This seems obvious. However, it’s not common practice.
At the beginning of each design season, many brands design their color palette based solely on color trends without identifying their seasonal color opportunities. They may end up with a beautiful, trend-right palette, but once it comes time to apply the palette to the product line, they run into issues.
Here are a few of the problems when a brand does not define their seasonal color opportunities:
* They are missing the right color for a new product.
* There are not enough color opportunities to create strong merchandising stories.
* Products in new colors don’t merchandise with intended products in carryover colors.
* The tone or value of the colors in the palette are not right for the products receiving color - too saturated, too subtle, too dark, too light, too bright.
* New colors are redundant to colors carrying over in existing products (i.e. A new steely, mid-tone blue added to the palette can’t get used adequately because it is too close to a carryover navy.)
* The longevity of the colors doesn’t match the longevity of the products receiving color - too progressive, too core, too safe, too risky.
* New colors don’t translate well on the materials of the products receiving color.
* New colors don’t make sense for the consumer categories or product types the season’s designs focus on.
* They simply don’t have the right colors to make the desired color impact.
What then typically ends up happening is either the brand does the best with what they’ve got, or they add and/or drop colors late into the design process. The result is increased time, cost, stress, and likely still, a line that has a Frankenstein quality.
Not ideal.
But, this is easy to avoid if you design your color palette with a full understanding of where your seasonal color opportunities are. To do this, at the beginning of the season - in tandem with color trend research and inspiration - identify:
1. What colors in your color palette will carryover and what colors will drop. (Make this easier by employing a Color Roadmap.)
2. The number of new colors you can realistically add. (Consider budget, bandwidth, etc.)
3. What products carryover, and what colorways in those products carryover.
4. What existing products will get new colorways. Then, determine the quantity, longevity, and consumer for each of those new colorways per style.
5. If the materials, targeted consumer, or distribution are changing for any existing products.
6. What new products are being added this season.
7. What is the purpose and value of each new product.
8. What are the materials, targeted consumer, and distribution for each of these new products.
9. What existing products do the new products need to merchandise with.
10. How many colorways will each new product come in, and how long does each colorway need to remain in the line.
By establishing your seasonal color opportunities, you ensure that you are building a color palette - and a color strategy - that matches your needs and goals. You ensure that your color palette is not just something beautiful to look at, but is an impactful, effective tool that makes your brand and your product line memorable, meaningful, and distinct …and something beautiful to look at.
That’s how to choose the right colors.
