♛Branding

How to Choose Brand Colours: Strategy, Palettes, Contrast and Colour Psychology Without the Myths

By Abdullah Zahoor, ChessCraft Studio · 6 min read

Colour is one of the most visible parts of a brand, and one of the hardest things to change later. Yet many palettes are chosen from a mood board and a favourite shade, then break the first time they meet a printed box, a white Amazon background or a phone in bright sunlight.

This is the step by step process we use in our brand identity design work: practical, testable and free of colour psychology myths. If you are still working out what a brand identity includes beyond colour, see our guide to brand identity vs a logo.

Step 1: Start with strategy, not swatches

Before opening a colour picker, write down three things:

• Positioning: who the brand is for and how it is different. A premium skincare brand for sensitive skin needs a different palette from a bold, playful snack brand.
• Personality: three to five words that describe how the brand should feel, such as calm, expert, warm, energetic, rebellious.
• Where it lives: packaging on a shelf, product pages, social feeds, a website, signage. Each puts different demands on colour.

Every colour decision should be checked against these words. “Does this feel calm and expert?” is a much better question than “Do we like this green?”

Step 2: Look at the colours your category already owns

Gather screenshots of your competitors: their logos, packaging, websites, Amazon search results and social feeds. Lay them out on one board. Patterns appear quickly: a sea of blue in finance, green and kraft in natural products, black and gold in premium goods.

You then have a strategic choice:

• Fit the category where shoppers rely on colour cues to understand what a product is (for example, cues that signal natural, clinical or premium).
• Break from it to stand out, when your positioning is about being different.

Often the best answer is both: a familiar category cue in a secondary colour, with a distinctive primary colour that nobody else in your space uses.

Step 3: Build the palette structure

A working brand palette is not a row of equal swatches. It is a system with roles. A common starting structure:

Proportion matters as much as the colours themselves. The well-known 60-30-10 rule (about 60% dominant, 30% secondary, 10% accent) is a useful starting point, not a law. Many strong brands are mostly neutral, with the primary colour used sparingly so it stays special.

How to pick the primary colour

Shortlist three to five candidates from Step 1 and Step 2. For each, ask: is it distinctive in our category, does it match our personality words, does it work as a solid background and as a small detail, and can it be reproduced in print? The colour that passes all four usually wins over the one someone simply likes.

Building neutrals and secondary colours

Neutrals carry most of your layouts, so give them character: a warm off-white instead of pure white, a dark navy or deep green instead of pure black. Secondary colours can come from adjusting the primary’s lightness and saturation, or from a contrasting hue that suits your personality. Keep the full palette small enough to stay recognisable; most brands do not need more than six to eight core colours.

Colour psychology: what is useful and what is myth

You will find many articles claiming that blue means trust, red increases appetite or orange boosts conversions. Treat these with care. Colour associations are real, but they are not universal rules:

• Context changes meaning. Red on a sale sign, a luxury handbag and a warning label says three different things.
• Culture changes meaning. In parts of East Asia, white has traditional associations with mourning and red with luck and celebration, so a palette for the Middle East, Europe or Asia may need different checks.
• Category changes meaning. Shoppers learn colour cues from the brands around them, which is why your category audit in Step 2 is more reliable than a generic colour chart.
• Fit beats formula. What matters is whether the colour feels right for this brand, this audience and this product, and whether it is distinctive enough to remember.

Use colour psychology as a vocabulary for discussing options, not as evidence for a decision.

Step 4: Test contrast and accessibility

A beautiful palette that people cannot read is a broken palette. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) give clear, measurable targets:

• Normal text: a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background (Level AA).
• Large text (roughly 24px regular or 18.7px bold and above): at least 3:1.
• Icons, buttons and graphical elements needed to understand content: at least 3:1 against adjacent colours.
• Enhanced (AAA) level: 7:1 for normal text and 4.5:1 for large text.

Logos and brand names are exempt from these contrast requirements, but the text, buttons and graphics around them are not. Use a contrast checker on every text and background pairing you plan to use, and record the ones that pass in your brand guidelines.

Check for colour blindness

Colour vision deficiency affects about one in 12 men and one in 200 women, and the most common type makes reds, yellows and greens harder to tell apart. Preview your palette with a colour blindness simulator (built into many design tools), and never use colour as the only way to show information, such as a red and green “in stock” indicator or a chart with no labels.

Step 5: Make it work on screen and in print

Screens display colour with light (RGB), and printers use ink (CMYK). Some bright on-screen colours, especially vivid greens, blues, oranges and neons, cannot be reproduced exactly in standard CMYK print. Decide early which medium matters most and choose colours that survive both.

For each brand colour, define:

• HEX and RGB for websites, social media and digital ads
• CMYK for standard print, converted with your printer’s profile and checked on a physical proof
• Pantone (spot colour) if you need exact, repeatable matches on packaging or merchandise

Material changes colour too. The same ink looks different on coated card, uncoated paper, kraft board and fabric, so request samples or proofs on the actual material. Our print-ready files checklist explains CMYK, spot colours and proofs in more detail.

Step 6: Test the palette in real applications

Before you sign off, put the palette to work. Mock up a packaging front, an Amazon main image and listing infographic, a social post, a website hero and a business card. Look at them:

• On a phone, in daylight and at low brightness
• In dark mode, if your website or app supports it
• On a white background, since marketplaces such as Amazon require pure white main images
• Next to your competitors, at thumbnail size
• Printed, on the real material

Problems that never show on a mood board show up immediately here: a primary colour that disappears next to white, an accent that clashes with product photography, a dark neutral that turns muddy on kraft. Adjust, then test again.

For an example of a palette applied across identity and packaging, see our Nook Pet Co brand identity case study.

Checklist: choosing brand colours

• Positioning and three to five personality words agreed before choosing colours
• Competitor colour audit completed across packaging, web and marketplaces
• One distinctive primary colour, with clear roles for secondary, neutral and accent colours
• Proportions defined, not just swatches
• Every text pairing checked against WCAG contrast (4.5:1 normal text, 3:1 large text and graphics)
• Palette previewed with a colour blindness simulator; colour never the only signal
• HEX, RGB, CMYK and Pantone values defined for each colour
• Physical proofs checked on the real packaging or print material
• Palette tested on mobile, white backgrounds, dark mode and next to competitors
• Final palette, approved pairings and usage rules recorded in the brand guidelines

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