One of the most fun tasks between startup idea conception and launching is the process of coming up with a business name, logo and overall brand strategy. Your business idea and business name often don’t feel real until you put it in visual form. Seeing your company name represented in logo format for the first time is an exciting feeling. However, a mistake many entrepreneurs make is they rush through the logo process so they can move on to the next task on their to-do list. Choosing the right logo graphic, font and in particular color will impact how it resonates with your customer and potential leads. This article will provide you some helpful tips on how to choose logo and brand colors for your startup.

What Are Your Mission and Vision Statements?

Before deciding on a color you need to make sure you draft and finalize your company mission and vision statements. Once you figure out what your startup will stand for and what message you want to convey you can think about branding. Without this crucial direction, your logo and branding strategy will be off and disconnected from your core demographic.

What Are the Primary Colors of Your Competitors?

Certain industries are dominated by specific color schemes when it comes to branding. The financial industry uses a lot of blue color schemes. This is no surprise as the color blue conveys trust, loyalty, and intelligence. Look at your competitors and see what color accents are used in their logo and across their brand assets. This is not to suggest you need to or should copy them. Knowing what works and what doesn’t sets some practical guidelines, however.

It’s Time to Get Creative

Now that you have done your research it’s time to hire a graphic designer or use a free tool like the GraphicSprings Logo Maker. Whether you rely on a professional or create your own logo try it in different color schemes. Instead of choosing random colors go with colors that will represent what your business stands for. This is why your mission and vision statements are so crucial for this process. Here are some of the major brand colors and the messages they convey:

  • Red: The color red is associated with energy, danger, power, and desire.
  • Blue: As previously mentioned blue conveys loyalty and wisdom but it also stands for confidence, stability, and faith.
  • Green: Of course green symbolizes nature. Companies who want to indicate growth, harmony, and freshness also choose green as their main brand color.
  • Black: Black isn’t a color technically but gets leveraged by countless companies for their branding. It conveys elegance, formality, and power.
  • Purple: This isn’t as common of a color choice as some of the ones above. It’s a good fit for companies who want to symbolize luxury, ambition, and nobility however.
  • Yellow: Yellow conveys the message of happiness, energy, and intellect.

Get Unbiased Feedback

Once you have finalized your logo in a few of your favourite color choices it’s time to gather feedback. Just because you like the logo doesn’t mean it will speak to others. Start surveying your close circle of friends and family. From there you should expand your surveying efforts and focus on business stakeholders including potential clients. It’s great if you and your business partners love the logo but in the end it has to speak to the core demographic you are trying to sell to.

Scale your Surveying Efforts

If you exhausted your close circle and surveyed potential customers you can focus on the general public. To get a feel for public opinion use a tool like Google Surveys. Simply set up a free survey and then add your logo in a few color variations. Google allows you to select your demographic by setting location, age range, etc. However, there is a fee for each respondent that completes the survey. If this helps you nail the perfect brand color that the public connects with it’s money well spent.

Considering Overall Brand Strategy

When it comes to branding everything starts with your logo. The color scheme you choose for your logo should be repeated across all of your brand assets. This will give you a professional and consistent look. This is an important consideration when deciding on your core color. For example an all purple logo might look great in a small thumbnail on the web but what about large tradeshow banner or an all purple accent wall in your store? Would it be too loud or fit with what your company stands for? The message here is to how your branding will look like in all shapes, sizes, and forms.

Conclusion

Launching your startup is exciting and you have a million things on your mind. During that busy time entrepreneurs often don’t allocate sufficient time to come up with the right logo, particularly color choice. Although it takes a bit more effort initially it will pay off in the long run. Going with logo that doesn’t resonate with your market just means you’ll have to rebrand down the line which will be much more time and resource intensive. Just do it right the first time!