The ultimate guide to logo colors for your business
Summary/Overview
Color can be a powerful tool for attraction, so why not utilize that power for your brand? By using our simple guide, you can drive potential customers to your business by using effective colors in your logo design and brand aesthetic.
Whether you’re going for a full logo redesign, or just starting out on your logo branding journey, this guide — paired with the free logo maker feature on Adobe Express — can help you along the way.
How can logo colors affect your business?
Choosing the right logo colors for your brand is essential for communicating what you’re bringing to the market and what you want your customers to feel about your brand and products.
In marketing, colors can be used to motivate or inspire, thus impacting a consumer’s impression of a brand and whether they can be persuaded to consider that brand for future purchases. This concept is known as color psychology, a school of thought regarding how different shades of color effect human behavior.
Certain colors evoke certain emotions — like excitement or curiosity — which can lead to people searching out your brand based on how you present yourself to the world. An easy way to pull people in with specific colors is through your brand logo and the color scheme you use for your business.
When deciding on how to present your brand to potential customers, consider the following information about these common colors in how you select your most impactful brand aesthetic.
Which logo color schemes are right for your business?
Energize your client base with red logos
Long considered a power color, red is not for the faint of heart. When it comes to your logo, using red as the lead color showcases the energy and excitement of your brand. However, make sure to be clear with how you use this color, as red can border on provocative, arousing, or even dangerous — depending of course on what you’re trying to sell and how you sell it.
Companies known for their red-centric logos include Coca-Cola, KFC, Virgin, CNN, and Netflix.
Get your blood pumping with these free red logo templates from Adobe Express:
Attract fun customers with orange logos
Energetic, bold, and playful, orange bursts onto the scene with a sunny declaration. This color is for brands who aren’t shrinking violets; rather, brands can benefit from orange’s enthusiastic nature to show off what’s fun or thrilling about their own company via an orange-centric logo.
Companies that use primarily orange in their logo design include Nickelodeon, The Home Depot, Etsy, SoundCloud, and JBL.
Start the party with these free orange logo templates from Adobe Express:
Liven up your business with yellow logos
Striking and soft in equal measure, yellow logos can express a wide range of feelings, including cheerfulness, youth, caution, and even opulence — especially when the yellow levels up to gold. A little of this color can go a long way, especially when you remember that yellow resembles warmth, and can keep getting hotter the more you use of it.
Companies that play with yellow in their brand imagery include Nikon, Snapchat, Post-it, National Geographic, and McDonalds.
Infuse your brand with these free yellow logo templates from Adobe Express:
Achieve brand harmony with green logos
Often referred to as nature’s neutral, green is a color that evokes the beauty of Mother Earth, representative of harmony, growth, well-being, and lush spaces. Taken out of its more organic context, green can be a symbol for money, success, or sustainability. Regardless of the hue, this color generally creates a sense of calm or renewed happiness.
Companies that have adopted green-centric logos include Starbucks, Whole Foods, Sprite, Animal Planet, and John Deere.
Respect the planet with these free green logo templates from Adobe Express:
Show clients your professionalism with blue logos
Blue as a color is of two minds: one of serenity, and one of security. A blue logo can evoke feelings of cooling calmness, compassion, and sympathy. On the other hand, it can establish a sense of trustworthiness, authority, or professionalism — a sense that may persuade you as a consumer to feel secure with a brand because of its blue imagery.
Companies that anchor their brand with blue logos include Visa, Ford, Facebook, Pepsi, Lowe’s, IBM, and PayPal.
Feel secure about your business with these free blue logo templates from Adobe Express:
Create an exclusive atmosphere with purple logos
Historically associated with royalty, purple has long been elevated as a shade to represent the upper echelon. This rich color evokes a sense of majesty and mystery, as luxurious as it is divine. Used as a pastel, purple often can be seen as more sentimental and nostalgic. Purple and gold are often used together in logo color schemes to denote luxury or ceremony.
Companies that indulge in purple-centric imagery for their brand include Yahoo!, Taco Bell, Hallmark, Cadbury, Roku, and Twitch.
Show off your pedigree with these free purple logo templates from Adobe Express:
Modernize your brand with black-and-white logos
This power color combo is comprised of shades that aren’t really colors at all; white is made up of all colors on the visible light spectrum, whereas black is a complete lack of light, and therefore a lack of color. Together they create an impactful image that can simultaneously be stark and elegant depending on your branding style. On their own, they represent opposite ends of the emotional spectrum when it comes to color theory. Black logos can present as sophisticated, dramatic, and mysterious. White logos are typically associated with newness, clean lines, and minimalism.
Companies that keep things simple with black and white logos include BBC, Wikipedia, Prada, Nike, Uber, and Adidas.
Stick with what works with these free black and white logo templates from Adobe Express:
How to make your own logos
Creating your own eye-catching logo is easy with the Adobe Express free logo maker. You can make your own logo from scratch or start from any one of the free templates already available, all of which are customizable based on your desired brand aesthetic.