Color Psychology in Branding & Marketing

In the Internet business or non-internet color selection also have a role, it can affect to your product image, as well as your business. Color is vibration, and we always respond to it either consciously or not. Colors affect the comfort of the environment and mood. The color that we wear everyday affect other people's views to us.



Take a look at almost all food businesses such as KFC, MC Donald, Pizza Hut, virtually all of them use red as a domination of their property. Why is that? According to color psychology, red is to increase appetite. So many business people use red for the food business. I also believe, everyone has their favorite color. That shows that there is a relationship between color and human, and the power of color can affect our emotional side.

YELLOW

Psychological response: Optimism, Hope, Philosophy, Dishonesty, Coward (for Western culture), betrayal, and intellectual enlightenment. Yellow is the color of sacred in Hinduism. Yellow is a warm color. Interestingly enough attention and is very good if used as background to black text because it will be more prominently visible.

ORANGE

Psychological Response: Energy, balance, warmth. Emphasizing a product that is not expensive.

RED

Psychological response: Power, energy, warmth, love, lust, aggression, danger, opinionated, dynamic, and confident
Red color can change its meaning when combined with other colors. When it is combined with the Greens it will become a symbol of Christmas. When combined with white, it will create the impression of 'happiness' in the Oriental culture, also can mean brave and ardent zeal.

In short it is generally associated with explosive feelings. The red color easily attract attention and increase appetite. So as I said earlier, many food businesses to use the dominant red color because it is believed to increase appetite of consumers, just look at the color of pizza hut, McD, KFC which is also red.
Or if for the text, the red color will surely attract more attention than others. But it also can make eyes tired quickly when it is above the black background.

BLUE

Psychological response: Beliefs, Conservatives, Security, Technology, Cleanliness, Order, Peace, soothing, spirituality, contemplation, mystery, and patience.
Many are used as colors on the logo of Bank in the United States to give the impression of quiet, reliable, knowledge and insights. This color is very good to grow customer loyalty. Many banks are using blue as its dominant color, as well as education.

GREEN

Psychological Response: Natural, Healthy, Lucky, renewal, growth, fertility, harmony, optimism, freedom, and balance
Green color is not popular to the Global level. In China and France, green-colored packaging is not so acclaimed. But in the Middle East, the green color is very popular. Many products emphasize naturalness of products using this colors as options. Many companies associated with the exploration of nature will use the green color to confirm that they are environmentally safe. The green color is trendy and will be widely used, especially along campaign related to the environment. Many detergents packs also green-colored.

PURPLE OR ORANGE

Psychological response: Spiritual, Mystery, nobility, Transformation, rudeness, arrogance, Friendly, Romantic, and Self.
This color is very rarely found in nature. Purple is a mixture of red and blue. That describes the attitude of 'strikes' hard symbolized by the blue. The combination of intimacy and erotic or lead to a deep and sensitive understanding is less precise but full of hope.

BROWN

Psychological response: Land / Earth, Reliability, Comfort, Durability, Stability, weight, stability and elegance.
Brown color often used for food packaging in the U.S. and very successful, but in Columbia, It doesn't bring the result when it comes to the packaging.

BLACK

Psychological Response: Fear, Power, Sophistication, Death, Mystery, Sexuality, Grief, Elegance, and Independent, charismatic, Solitude, Discipline, and strong-willed.
It symbolizes the death and grief in Western culture. Will symbolize elegance, prosperity and sophistication when used on the packaging. Shows what is assertive, elegant, and exclusive. And It could also contain secret meaning. Like when I have used black as the dominant color on my other blog. the colors are very supportive of the word "secret" which I want to emphasize.
Another case for the car color, usually black-colored car is more expensive than other colored cars.

White

Color pure and clean, natural, empty, colorless, neutral, new beginnings, purity and sanctity
This color is fully integrated with other colors. The white color on the website is widely used as the background color of black text. Because visitors will be easier to read.

Gray

Psychological response: Intellectual, Future (the color of the Millennium), Simplicity, Sorrow.
Gray is the most easily colors to seen by the eye.

Conclusion

The use of color is very important in the selection of fonts or typefaces. Ability in understanding the culture and colors are very influential in setting a color (in its use in the product design), therefore the knowledge of color is an important requirement for novice designers. However, the colors can depend also with a particular field, cultural, religious, and local custom.