Building a brand color palette isn’t as easy as picking out your favorite colors. It takes a bit more strategy and thought than that. Working with business owners as a brand strategist, I have noticed a common branding mistake that deals with branding colors. So today, I want to guide you through the process of how to build a brand color palette that is useful and beautiful.

Step 1: The Colors

First things first, actually choose the colors you want to use for your brand! These can be colors that you feel embody your personality and that you personally love. Or it can be colors that you feel connect your audience to your business emotionally. Either way, choose one to three colors that you love, and make sure they compliment each other!

Step 2: Neutrals

Now that you have some fun colors, we want to choose both dark and light neutrals to contrast with your colors. For your dark neutral, you will want to stick to either black, dark grey, or navy. And for your light neutral you can use white, cream, and even very light blues or pinks. Don’t feel that you are stuck in a tight corner of the color spectrum for this step. There are a lot of options here, so explore the spectrum and see what works best with your main colors!

Step 3: Metallic

Not all brands will feel they need a metallic option in their brand color palette. However, you will want to identify what yours would be, even if you do not use it often! Gold, silver, bronze, brass, any metallic material works!

Tips

When choosing your color palette you can get lost in the colors pretty easily. Something that helps me is to stick within the same color families. Stick with either cool or warm colors throughout, and focus on the undertones of each color. This will allow you to have variety in your palette while accomplishing something complimentary.

Another great tip is to use coolers.co or Canva to help you see the colors together! Most of us are visual learners, and it can be hard to learn what your brand color palette will look like without a visuals. Use these tools to mockup your brand and see how well you like it as it comes to life!

Want more tips and insights on building your brand colors? Learn more inside Build A Brand Course.