 Welcome to The Journey. Today we're talking about using color schemes for your brand, what works and why. You've already taken the time to set up a brand style guide and you already have those colors. That's great to just use on your website. Yeah, and if you're thinking, hey, I'm gonna start my brand colors from scratch. Go for it, but there's some things you definitely want to ensure you're doing to make sure you succeed. But if you're a new business and you're looking to start your brand colors, maybe even switch up your brand colors. Awesome, but let's go into some ways to make sure you ensure success. You'll want to tackle this in two steps. One, figure out the colors that fit for your brand and two, apply it to your website. So you want to ask yourself, how many brand colors do you need? Well, general rule of thumb, five, but I've seen where some companies they have one brand color and that's what they have for their logo, the buttons, the photo accents. But if you do have the time to choose five colors, it's going to help you a lot down the line. You're going to have more flexibility with that future design work. So let's break down what those five brand colors might look like. All right, let's do it. Starting with your main color. This is the most predominant color that's on your website. It may even be your entire logo. Yeah, so like the Facebook logo, also noted different blue than the Twitter logo. Next is that secondary brand color, which could be light or dark accents. You can find that in your border, the text or the links on the website. Then you have those tertiary colors. So these are optional, but they're great for a business that wants to have a little more fun or have that pop of color. It's great for adding some spice to your website. So next up is that dark colored text. This is typically black or dark gray, but I've also seen it to be blue or even a deep brown. Yeah, the most important thing here is to make sure that it's easy to read. Right. Lastly, you have your light color or your background. So this is typically like a white or a neutral light beige or a light gray, something to really make those darker colors pop. That reminds me of that coffee spot that you liked to visit. Yeah, absolutely. So Kuve Coffee, it's a local coffee shop in Austin. We actually have it at our GoDaddy office, and it's a really great example. Their website, their main color is that bright blue, and then they use that white to really pop with their logo. That's that secondary color. And then if you look at their graphic down below, you see they add a little life to it with some like light baby blue or a light gray. It really adds in some more fun to the page. And then of course that dark text color, they use the navy blue. So everything is really legible and it looks great. Yeah. So you might be wondering, how do I choose these colors for my brand? And there's some things you want to consider to help you get to that point. Yeah. Start by asking yourself these six questions. Number one, gender. Is my brand more masculine or more feminine? Also number two, tone. Is it more playful or more serious? Number three, value. Yeah. Is my brand more luxurious or more affordable? Number five, age. Is my brand youthful or more mature? And number six, energy. Is my brand super loud or more subdued? Let's talk about color theory. Color can be your most powerful design element if if use effectively. Yeah. You'll want to consider three different parts, the color wheel, color harmony and the context of how colors are used. So our society interprets basic moods, emotions and feelings based on colors. So it's really important to acknowledge with each color what is that interpretation that an individual has when viewing it? Yeah. So a maker could be associated with that orange color or a healer with that green. A great example is Godaddy recently changed its main brand color. We went from that green to an everyday blue and it's supposed to really empower like that entrepreneur spirit and really that inclusiveness that blue is more modern and up to date. Yeah. And that's a very cool and confident vibe I feel like. Additionally, colors can mean different things in different cultures. So for example, the color red in Western culture, red symbolizes love and passion. And in Chinese culture, it resembles good fortune. However, in South African cultures, red resembles mourning. Now let's get into the actual color scheme. So you have that color theory, you know what colors really are going to impact your customers in what way, but how do you actually pick the colors to represent your brand? So traditionally, there's a number of color combos that are aesthetically pleasing, but you do want to take that into consideration, you know, do these two colors complement each other or not? These are called color harmonies or color chords and they consist of two or more colors with a fixed relation on the color wheel. Yeah. And if you can find out which colors to use consciously and harmoniously, you can reach some spectacular results. But if you have no idea what we're talking about and that all just sounded like gibberish to you, don't worry, there are plenty of apps and websites or tools that you can use. But keep in mind, some colors, they don't translate from digital to print and vice versa. And that brings us to our next point. Test for color blindness. Not everyone has perfect vision, so do your research so that, you know, you want to be able to serve everyone and that way you'll be able to really make your website more accessible to everyone. So you can research web design guidelines for color blindness to know best practices. Also, don't forget to document your brand colors. You've already spent all this time creating the perfect brand colors and this isn't something you're going to want to just eyeball down the road. You want to make sure you write down those color codes so that you can remember all that information. Yeah, so put it in a guide so you remember the voice, the copy, the text, and actually we have a whole video about how to do that. Okay, so now that you have the perfect colors, how do you actually apply them to your website? So for the purchase button, you definitely want to go with your main or secondary color. Also consider how it is on the page. Is it going to have a lighter background so therefore should be the darker color or vice versa? But you do want to make sure that this stands out. It's a very important button. It's how you make money. So think about that in mind when talking about the color scheme for your purchase button. Then for your informational button, you can either use your primary color again or use a secondary color. It's really up to you, but either way you want it to still be visible, but maybe not as prominent as the purchase button. Yeah, so that way you're creating a sense of hierarchy with your call to action buttons. And don't forget about your links too. A lot of times they're just going to default to that bright blue color, but if that's not on brand, it's not going to look good. So make sure you make a deliberate effort to go in and change those links so that they're like a secondary or tertiary color. Let's talk about headline text. An obvious one. Don't use the same color as your links. I recommend using darker colors, your blacks and darker grays. Then you have your graphics and pictures. This is where you can really add in some flavor and kind of break up parts of your website. You could do like accent boxes with those colors that really spice things up or bring in different text overlays on pictures. It's one thing I love when I see it is when companies change their social media icons to actually line up better with their brand. Yeah, it's all about creating that brand consistency, that brand awareness. That way you have that full aesthetic no matter which platform they're on. So what do you think? Are you going to use five colors for your brand or just one? Well, that's a wrap. You just learned how to choose a color scheme for your brand. Be sure to like this video and comment down below. And be sure to ring that bell so you're the first to know when the next video comes out and subscribe to our channel. This is a journey.