Color. It brightens our world, evokes mood, and can help us instantly recognize icons with minimal information: Batman is black and grey; Superman is red, yellow, and blue. For as long as brands have existed, color has been a part of their identities, too. John Deere is green and yellow. Coca-Cola is red. And I bet you can instantly conjure up the color that is Tiffany, right?
But as anyone faced with a color wheel from the paint store knows, selecting colors isn’t easy. So how do we at GRAPHEK help our clients reimagine their color palette?
Christina Davies is by title our art director & brand strategist and in practice our in-house color archeologist.
“Choosing and curating colors for clients is a process, and we start with a lot of questions,” she said. “If we’re refreshing a brand, we’ll likely carry over colors from the previous palette to build on brand equity. Some colors also have established associations that make their inclusion feel obvious; an organization emphasizing environmentalism, for example, is likely going to choose some shade of green.”
AAMA logo/color palette
For a peek inside the process, let’s look at a website and logo refresh we did with the American Association of Medical Assistants (AAMA). Just as green is recognized as being eco-friendly, red is symbolically important for many medically focused organizations, as it represents the color of blood. It is a powerful, strong color – yet certain tones of red can also convey the feeling of emergency and danger.
Working with AAMA, we conveyed red as one of life and health by injecting healing colors into their palette, using blue, teal, and purple hues. All can evoke positive emotional and physical responses that feel rich, calming, and almost mystical, furthering the feeling of well-being.
“There are infinite variations to color, and their effect on us change along with their shade. A warmer tone feels comforting; a cooler tone almost feels ‘electric.’ Testing and comparing different gradients of color to make sure nothing clashes is important,” Davies said. “Putting in a lot of thought at the start allows us to produce a streamlined color palette. Most organizations have logo colors, primary and secondary color palettes, and gradients, all of which allow flexibility for collateral, like for annual meetings. But having a functional color palette of just a few key colors – as AAMA now has – makes all the difference in building an effective brand.”
ESA logo/color palette
The Entomological Society of America (ESA) struggled with an unwieldy and inconsistent brand before coming to us to audit and update the organization’s look. One of the first things we noticed was a color palette using, literally, every color in the rainbow. And while it may seem that having the freedom to use any color might feel liberating, it instead makes branding incredibly difficult.
“Color is one of the totems for establishing a brand – it’s like a connective tissue,” Davies said. “You want to have a strong logo to represent you, a functional color system, and great typography. Throwing every color in the natural world into a color palette means really not having a color palette at all.”
With the study of insects at ESA’s core, greens and blues – like the earth and sky – felt like obvious choices. We also considered the beautiful iridescence so unique to many insects, along with the structure and details of everything from spider webs to insects’ wings, all of which inspired us to add a system of gradient colors to their primary color palette of five. By adding an overlay, for example, we could limit the palette but still capture the wide variety of colors our natural world offers us.
As for the logo itself? The rainbow butterfly evolved into a slate-grey, neutral butterfly – a blank canvas that allowed the rest of the palette to pop.
AAE logo/color palette
Are you wondering if a typical palette is limited to a few colors? Let’s turn that idea on its head. The American Association of Endodontists (AAE) wanted to refresh and modernize their brand, with a focus on retaining the organization’s primary colors while expanding the palette with complementary secondary, supporting, and neutral tones to offer greater flexibility and depth. The result is a wide-ranging palette that works.
“One of our first discoveries with AAE’s brand is that they didn’t have enough in their guidelines – they weren’t specific enough in terms of usage. As a result, accent colors were sometimes paired in ways that didn’t work well, and they used different colors for each of their programs that made it difficult to tie it all back to their main brand,” Davies said.
A brand audit revealed that AAE gravitated toward purple and didn’t use a blue that was too close to a turquoise they also had in their palette. We chose shades that clearly varied from one another but still paired well together, and inserted some surprise colors, like pink. Why pink? Because endodontic files – dental instruments used during root canal procedures – use a color-coded system to indicate their size, with each color corresponding to a specific ISO (International Organization for Standardization) size, and pink is one of those colors! AAE’s new palette at first blush may look large, but on inspection, it’s actually a few primary colors with a lot of supporting shades and gradients that add depth and breadth to the existing hues.
Once a palette is created in concept, our work is far from over: Testing is as important as the initial curation. How do the colors translate across all mediums? How do colors pair with each other, both in terms of looking pleasing together and being accessible to those with visual impairments?
“Every shade of color is going to print a little bit differently than what you’ll see on screen,” Davies added. “It’s why the Pantone Matching System (PMS) exists – its proprietary color order system makes it possible to have the kind of precision that designers and our clients depend on.”
Still, all the planning and testing in the world is no match for actual rollout, and at GRAPHEK, we build follow-ups into our process.
“Everything is a process, and giving a client the time to flex and try out a new color palette is as important as creating the palette in the first place. Test, retest, and make changes if needed. Guidelines are living documents, and it’s worth investing the time to make sure colors are working as intended,” Davies added.
For a deeper dive into the science and theory of color, particularly in terms of how it translates online and in print, or to someone with visual impairments, be sure to review “A World of Color: From Theory to Application”, from our June 2024 issue.
