Colour in branding: what it does and does not do

There is a stubborn list where blue stands for trust and red for urgency. It is pleasantly simple and it is wrong: the same colour reads differently by culture, by sector, and by whatever surrounds it at the moment someone sees it. What colour does do is create difference — between you and the rest of your market, and between the button and the text around it. That is less poetic than a colour-psychology infographic, but it is the only part you can build a system on. And a system is what you need, because a brand colour also has to work on a sign, in an email, and on a screen in direct sun.

What colour does

• Sets you apart from competitors all using the same blue
• Creates hierarchy: what is an action, what is only information
• Makes repetition possible, so you are recognised before you are read
• Signals state — an error, a confirmation, a warning

What it does not

Colour does not change what you sell and will not repair a message that is wrong. A shade that only looks right on your screen is not yet a brand colour either: put it next to print, on a cheap phone display and in dark mode before you commit to it.