Psycho Color: Choose wisely

Whether you're planning a print piece or a Web site, color can make or break your project. It's funny how many of us painstakingly look over color chips and swatches to decorate our living rooms, but can't quite understand that choosing the correct palette for a project can be just as important and perhaps even more lasting.

Selecting a good palette of colors reinforces your brand, helps you tie everything you do in the way of promotion and marketing together, and helps create an identity. Color can do more than establish brand, it can also control the mood of your audience. It's a simple concept that is well understood in print, but not so much in electronic mediums.

Human emotions are triggered by color. And certain colors trigger certain reactions.

Everything we, buy, eat, wear, and all of the things that take up space where we live, work or play, all have colors. These colors provide a psychological and emotional response in everyone. These responses reflect who we are and the things that we think and feel.

Here are a few observations to help you understand colors and how they affect your audience.

Red colors can stimulate warmth, hunger, and excitement. Cooler colors such as green and blues, enhance calm and content feelings. Dark colors make objects seem heavier, while light colors make them seem lighter.

Yellow may reflect a lack of worry, while black a troubled state. Of course, not all colors mean the same things to all people. Yellow may sometimes mean cheap, green may mean money or greed, black may mean elegance or death.

Color has become a science and it is a much needed weapon as part of your marketing arsenal. You will need to take great thought in choosing color as it will identify you, because once a color is "owned" it is associated with you and your company. We're sure you've noticed this with examples such as Coca Cola red, Tide orange, and John Deere Green. It is just as important to your identity as your logo. If a shape provides a symbol, be aware that color does the same.

Don't overlook the issue of color with your business. It matters as much as the way you say things or the way you deliver on your promises as a business.

Color is standard across the board, too. All colors are addressed as PMS values and assigned numbers. Even cars, couches and clothes use these color standards. If you don't know what your PMS colors are, ask your design company and they should be able to tell you. Then use them consistently for everything you do, signs, printed pieces, Web sites, etc.

If you don't have a color palette yet, ask your designer to see a palette of colors - not only the predominant one that you use or like, but the secondary palettes that complement and accent the main colors. Second, trust the palette rather than your own preferences. Altering just one color in the palette can change the look of your project dramatically or compromise the connectivity of color.

Finally, remember that the favorite color in Corporate America is blue. :)