I was reminded of the challenging task of selecting colors for a new logo as we are nearing completion on a new identity for a company called Timberline Tool. Think of any major brand in the marketplace and you can probably identify the color that is associated with them. IBM Blue, UPS brown or the color of a school bus. A person doesn’t need to read a package to know that it is a Coca-Cola. Over time these companies have invested millions of dollars to make sure they “own” a color and spend millions protecting their color as well.

Our association with color is closely connected to our emotions and senses, just like our sense of smell and taste. It affects our mood, what we wear, and what we purchase. The brain reads color after it registers shape and before it reads content. The human eye can distinguish some 10,000 hues of color. This presents both opportunities and dilemmas in the world of corporate identity and branding.

Early in my career I worked for a corporate identity firm in Seattle, WA, where I first learned how important this was. The project was for Boeing www.boeing.com and we were updating their corporate standards which included standardizing the colors for their corporate identity system. There was no doubt that there needed to be standard color when at the time they had over 200 different versions of business cards in use. They had realized that over time their core brand had deteriorated partly due to the abuse of the color blue. I have never looked at so many different shades and hues of blue, but the end result was two specifically formulated colors known as “Boeing Blue” and “Boeing Gray.”

For smaller business enterprises this should not be overlooked. It is the one tool in your marketing belt that is quite often overlooked and ignored. Companies that control their color in their industry will have a distinct advantage over those who don’t. Ensuring proper reproduction of the brand color across a broad range of mediums is a tall challenge, but one that is well worth the investment considering the equity you can gain by establishing standards.

Here are a few basic questions to test the effectiveness of a color strategy:

• Is the color differentiated from competitors?
• What do you want the color to communicate?
• Does the color have sustainability?
• Can the color be protected?
• Are there technical challenges to getting the color right?
• Can you achieve consistency across a broad range of media?
• What color connotations will the color have in other cultures?

Last but not least, once standardized colors have been established, create identity standards and guidelines that make it easy to use for those who are involved with your marketing efforts.

How strategically did you select your colors? Does your brand identity truly represent your company or product well? Have you established usage standards and guidelines to maintain and manage your identity?

Tags: Color, Kurt Palmquist, Logos, Small Business Branding

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