Color is one of a designer's most powerful tools, capable of capturing attention and evoking deep emotions. Each person's reaction to color is shaped by their unique life experiences and cultural associations, which makes color a uniquely subjective yet universal language. As Sean Adams aptly puts it in The Designer’s Dictionary of Color, 'Color is subjective and emotional. It is a language all its own. It can be loud or quiet, somber or whimsical; it can remind us of the sea or a school, a factory or a forest. Color is an incredibly powerful tool.'
For marketers, understanding the psychology of color is essential for creating impactful digital experiences. Whether you’re choosing vibrant hues to boost engagement or more subdued tones to build trust, the right color choices can profoundly influence consumer behavior, brand perception, and user engagement. By tapping into the stories and emotions behind each color, brands can connect with their audiences in more meaningful ways.
When deciding on a brand palette, it’s essential to first consider the emotions, meanings, and associations behind potential colors. What messages or ideas does the brand want to communicate? Are there associations it should avoid?
Before choosing a color, start by defining the brand’s personality. We recommend reflecting on these key questions to guide the process:
Once the brand personality is clearly defined, you can begin exploring colors that align with and amplify that identity.
Each color carries a rich history of associations and meanings, with the power to evoke strong emotions and influence consumer behavior. With the brand personality in mind, let’s explore how each color is perceived and how you can use them effectively in your marketing strategy!
RED
Red is bold and stimulating, often symbolizing love and passion but also associated with danger and urgency. It’s attention-grabbing and can dominate an environment, making it a powerful choice in marketing to evoke strong emotional responses. Designers often use red as an “exclamation point” in compositions, drawing the eye instantly.
ORANGE
Orange radiates warmth, joy, and creativity. It’s often linked to energy and happiness, sitting between the fierceness of red and the brightness of yellow. It is the color of sunsets and ripe summer fruit. Orange is a great choice for brands wanting to project playfulness and approachability.
YELLOW
Yellow embodies happiness, sunlight, and optimism, signaling positive energy and hope. However, it also has associations with caution (think yellow traffic signs) and even cowardice. Designers must be careful with yellow’s use to ensure the tone matches the desired message.
GREEN
Green is the color of life, symbolizing nature, health, growth, and prosperity. Traditionally linked to success, it signals "go" in traffic lights, is considered "lucky" in Western culture, and evokes feelings of relaxation and peace. Positioned between yellow and blue on the color wheel, it blends the joy of yellow with the tranquility of blue.
BLUE
Blue conveys trust, honesty, and loyalty, making it a client-favorite choice for brand design. While blue can be soothing, it can also evoke sadness if overused. Culturally, blue is often seen as masculine, while pink is associated with femininity. Brands often use blue to communicate professionalism and stability, especially in corporate settings.
PURPLE
Purple represents spirituality and is commonly associated with royalty, Eastern religions, and Catholicism. Purple is both luxurious and mysterious, evoking inspiration and a sense of fantasy. Its depth can also convey an air of intimidation and superiority.
PINK
Pink is the color of femininity and romance. It communicates love, compassion, and innocence. With strong gender associations, it has been a staple in baby girls’ clothing for decades. While it represents youth and sweetness, too much pink can sometimes come across as overly childlike or whimsical.
BROWN
Most cultures connect brown with the earth. Brown is a stable, comforting color that represents nature and safety. It is the color of coffee, chocolate, and wood, and often carries warm emotions with it. Its complexity allows for a range of warm to cool tones, so designers should be strategic in selecting the right shades of brown.
GRAY
Gray is a neutral and conservative color that exists on a spectrum between black and white. While it can seem emotionless, its perception varies with tone: light gray appears subtle and sophisticated, while dark gray exudes richness and elegance. The phrase “gray area” implies moral ambiguity.
BLACK
A powerful tool, black will add depth to any project. It symbolizes discipline, formality, and confidence. While excessive use of black can feel overwhelming and depressing, when applied strategically, it can convey sophistication and maturity. When paired with other colors, the perceived meaning of black can shift and evolve.
WHITE
Often viewed as blank or "white space," white is rarely used as a dominant color. However, when paired with other colors, it creates contrast and drama. White can bring a sense of openness and space to branding, but it needs to be paired thoughtfully with other elements to avoid feeling stark. Culturally, it symbolizes purity, cleanliness, and innocence.
Once you’ve defined your brand personality and gained a solid understanding of color psychology, it's time to determine which colors will work best for your brand. Here are a few essential tips to guide your decision-making process:
Select colors that enhance and align with your brand personality: The colors you choose should reflect the essence of your brand. For example, a brand that embodies innovation and creativity may opt for vibrant, bold colors, while a brand focused on luxury and refinement might lean toward deeper, more sophisticated tones.
Consider colors that set you apart from competitors: Take note of the colors commonly used in your industry, but aim to differentiate yourself. Choosing a color palette that stands out from the competition can help your brand become more memorable and recognizable.
Opt for colors that resonate with your target audience: Think about who you’re trying to reach and what appeals to them emotionally. Different demographics respond to colors in unique ways, so be sure to select a palette that will connect with your audience on a deeper level.
Assign primary and secondary brand colors: Establishing a hierarchy of colors can help create a cohesive and versatile palette. Primary colors should be the core of your brand’s identity, while secondary colors can add depth and flexibility to your design.
Get inspired: Stay current by exploring color trends and design resources. Look for inspiration in successful brands or creative projects to discover fresh ideas for effective color usage.
When it comes to finding the perfect color palette, there are plenty of great tools and resources available to help spark creativity. Here are a few of our top picks for discovering and refining color combinations:
Coolors: A quick and easy color palette generator
Pinterest: An all-in-one resource for design, color, and style inspiration.
Dribbble: A go-to destination for illustration, web design, and branding inspiration.
ColorZilla: A free Chrome extension that lets you pick any color from your browser and easily copy its HEX code.
Color Hunt: A library of designer-curated color palettes.
Color is one of a designer's most powerful tools, capable of capturing attention and evoking deep emotions. Each person's reaction to color is shaped by their unique life experiences and cultural associations, which makes color a uniquely subjective yet universal language. As Sean Adams aptly puts it in The Designer’s Dictionary of Color, 'Color is subjective and emotional. It is a language all its own. It can be loud or quiet, somber or whimsical; it can remind us of the sea or a school, a factory or a forest. Color is an incredibly powerful tool.'
For marketers, understanding the psychology of color is essential for creating impactful digital experiences. Whether you’re choosing vibrant hues to boost engagement or more subdued tones to build trust, the right color choices can profoundly influence consumer behavior, brand perception, and user engagement. By tapping into the stories and emotions behind each color, brands can connect with their audiences in more meaningful ways.
When deciding on a brand palette, it’s essential to first consider the emotions, meanings, and associations behind potential colors. What messages or ideas does the brand want to communicate? Are there associations it should avoid?
Before choosing a color, start by defining the brand’s personality. We recommend reflecting on these key questions to guide the process:
Once the brand personality is clearly defined, you can begin exploring colors that align with and amplify that identity.
Each color carries a rich history of associations and meanings, with the power to evoke strong emotions and influence consumer behavior. With the brand personality in mind, let’s explore how each color is perceived and how you can use them effectively in your marketing strategy!
RED
Red is bold and stimulating, often symbolizing love and passion but also associated with danger and urgency. It’s attention-grabbing and can dominate an environment, making it a powerful choice in marketing to evoke strong emotional responses. Designers often use red as an “exclamation point” in compositions, drawing the eye instantly.
ORANGE
Orange radiates warmth, joy, and creativity. It’s often linked to energy and happiness, sitting between the fierceness of red and the brightness of yellow. It is the color of sunsets and ripe summer fruit. Orange is a great choice for brands wanting to project playfulness and approachability.
YELLOW
Yellow embodies happiness, sunlight, and optimism, signaling positive energy and hope. However, it also has associations with caution (think yellow traffic signs) and even cowardice. Designers must be careful with yellow’s use to ensure the tone matches the desired message.
GREEN
Green is the color of life, symbolizing nature, health, growth, and prosperity. Traditionally linked to success, it signals "go" in traffic lights, is considered "lucky" in Western culture, and evokes feelings of relaxation and peace. Positioned between yellow and blue on the color wheel, it blends the joy of yellow with the tranquility of blue.
BLUE
Blue conveys trust, honesty, and loyalty, making it a client-favorite choice for brand design. While blue can be soothing, it can also evoke sadness if overused. Culturally, blue is often seen as masculine, while pink is associated with femininity. Brands often use blue to communicate professionalism and stability, especially in corporate settings.
PURPLE
Purple represents spirituality and is commonly associated with royalty, Eastern religions, and Catholicism. Purple is both luxurious and mysterious, evoking inspiration and a sense of fantasy. Its depth can also convey an air of intimidation and superiority.
PINK
Pink is the color of femininity and romance. It communicates love, compassion, and innocence. With strong gender associations, it has been a staple in baby girls’ clothing for decades. While it represents youth and sweetness, too much pink can sometimes come across as overly childlike or whimsical.
BROWN
Most cultures connect brown with the earth. Brown is a stable, comforting color that represents nature and safety. It is the color of coffee, chocolate, and wood, and often carries warm emotions with it. Its complexity allows for a range of warm to cool tones, so designers should be strategic in selecting the right shades of brown.
GRAY
Gray is a neutral and conservative color that exists on a spectrum between black and white. While it can seem emotionless, its perception varies with tone: light gray appears subtle and sophisticated, while dark gray exudes richness and elegance. The phrase “gray area” implies moral ambiguity.
BLACK
A powerful tool, black will add depth to any project. It symbolizes discipline, formality, and confidence. While excessive use of black can feel overwhelming and depressing, when applied strategically, it can convey sophistication and maturity. When paired with other colors, the perceived meaning of black can shift and evolve.
WHITE
Often viewed as blank or "white space," white is rarely used as a dominant color. However, when paired with other colors, it creates contrast and drama. White can bring a sense of openness and space to branding, but it needs to be paired thoughtfully with other elements to avoid feeling stark. Culturally, it symbolizes purity, cleanliness, and innocence.
Once you’ve defined your brand personality and gained a solid understanding of color psychology, it's time to determine which colors will work best for your brand. Here are a few essential tips to guide your decision-making process:
Select colors that enhance and align with your brand personality: The colors you choose should reflect the essence of your brand. For example, a brand that embodies innovation and creativity may opt for vibrant, bold colors, while a brand focused on luxury and refinement might lean toward deeper, more sophisticated tones.
Consider colors that set you apart from competitors: Take note of the colors commonly used in your industry, but aim to differentiate yourself. Choosing a color palette that stands out from the competition can help your brand become more memorable and recognizable.
Opt for colors that resonate with your target audience: Think about who you’re trying to reach and what appeals to them emotionally. Different demographics respond to colors in unique ways, so be sure to select a palette that will connect with your audience on a deeper level.
Assign primary and secondary brand colors: Establishing a hierarchy of colors can help create a cohesive and versatile palette. Primary colors should be the core of your brand’s identity, while secondary colors can add depth and flexibility to your design.
Get inspired: Stay current by exploring color trends and design resources. Look for inspiration in successful brands or creative projects to discover fresh ideas for effective color usage.
When it comes to finding the perfect color palette, there are plenty of great tools and resources available to help spark creativity. Here are a few of our top picks for discovering and refining color combinations:
Coolors: A quick and easy color palette generator
Pinterest: An all-in-one resource for design, color, and style inspiration.
Dribbble: A go-to destination for illustration, web design, and branding inspiration.
ColorZilla: A free Chrome extension that lets you pick any color from your browser and easily copy its HEX code.
Color Hunt: A library of designer-curated color palettes.
At Good & Gold, we leverage Webflow for the majority of our non-e-commerce website projects. Why? Quite simply, Webflow is a digital designer's dream. The in-browser design tool essentially blends visual design with code, allowing us to design and develop at the same time. What's more, the platform allows for complex interactions and animated transitions, leveraging the power of CSS and JavaScript in a code-free environment.
Meanwhile, the platform also offers a simple interface for editors, allowing users to update page content and CMS collections without interfering with design elements, layouts, or other settings. Paired with super-simple and reliable hosting plans, Webflow is an appealing option for enhancing design and user experience while simplifying just about everything else.
Let’s break down the reasons we love Webflow here at Good & Gold:
Webflow’s clean interface is uncluttered and user-friendly, following similar layouts as popular design tools like Figma or Sketch. As long as you have front-end development knowledge, everything feels pretty familiar and intuitive. While you need to have a solid understanding of HTML and CSS to comfortably use Webflow, you don’t need to worry about code syntax—you can just click on a few settings to make your designs come to life.
Webflow allows us to create custom animations and interactions with ease. From scroll-based parallax animations to interactions around mouse movement, the sky's the limit! We can even add Lottie and After Effects animations, which is a huge benefit.
Webflow collections are similar to databases. Content is added to a collection, which will automatically generate a new entry (a new page) leveraging the same template as all the other entries. Blog posts, job listings, and case studies are great use cases for collections—the content of each entry is unique, but the layout is the same. At G&G, we define which pages will leverage collections and which will be standalone pages when defining a website’s sitemap. This way, when it’s time to build, we start by creating and configuring all of our defined collections, and then designing the template. Building data-driven pages has never been easier!
Webflow allows us to visualize different responsive breakpoints with the click of a button. Each breakpoint is editable independently from the others, which lets us choose between building consistent web pages across devices, or building unique experiences for mobile and desktop users.
When in doubt, we always check out Webflow University. The library is full of high-production educational videos…and believe it or not, they’re funny! (Like, actually funny!) We very rarely get stuck on issues in Webflow, because we can always find a solution in Webflow University.
The Webflow Editor allows our clients to edit text, images, videos, and links directly on the front end, and to add, edit, or remove any collections or pages. But it doesn’t allow them to edit anything design-related, which means it’s very difficult to “break” anything in the Editor. This creates a welcome peace of mind when using the Editor, and means that we can give clients complete control over the content of their websites while we focus on design and performance.
We’ve been building Webflow websites for a good while now. Here are some recent projects to explore:
Apiary Life founder Katie Lynch had demonstrated the viability of her business model through successful corporate partnerships, and needed a website that could communicate not only her mission, but the breadth of services and level of professional polish that clients could expect from Apiary Life. Read the case study
Though Infinity Images produces world-class, innovative work, the brand’s website felt dated, cluttered, and unprofessional. With our website redesign and migration, we aimed to more successfully communicate the brand’s identity—and most importantly, its capabilities—while also exuding a high level of sophistication and polish. Read the case study
Despite Tamarack’s innovative products and approach, its website suffered from the common symptoms of an overdue update: a muddled navigation untethered from clear user flows, a dated look, and hard-to-parse density with little storytelling. With our website redesign and migration, our goal was to effectively convey the company’s mission, and present its core products within the context of “disruptive innovation.” Read the case study
Allium Financial’s approach to financial management feels different: It’s rooted in understanding, compassion, personal connection, and warmth. Meanwhile, the company’s website failed to successfully communicate any of those differentiators, leaving users uninspired and uninformed. Read the case study
We’ve all been there: You’ve gone so long without rebranding that your logo doesn’t even really make sense anymore. In fact, it looks more like a strange relic from the past than a mark that represents your company’s mission and values. And those colors...what were you thinking? Were those actually fresh at the time? You vaguely remember that you were somehow excited about this whole “brand identity” at the time—but that time just feels so far away now…
Sound familiar? It sure does to us. Without further ado, 10 surefire signs that you’re due (or, more likely, overdue) for a rebrand:
Facing the prospect of updating your logo and brand identity can be overwhelming—but really, it’s a great opportunity to take a good look at what you do and where you’re going. Your visual brand is at the center of everything you do, and it has immense impact on your ability to attract new customers, maintain an engaged audience, and convert website visitors. And if you don’t feel good about your brand, it’s a fair bet that potential customers aren’t that impressed either.
It is our firm belief that rebranding does NOT need to be the painful, drawn-out, expensive process it's cracked up to be. Here at Good & Gold, we work with our partner (and superstar designer) Jen Wick at Fort Wick to guide you through a clearly defined, goal-oriented, six-week rebranding process that will not only deliver a suite of logos and a comprehensive style guide, but will reconnect you with your organization’s mission and values.
Week 0: Project Kickoff
Before we get started, we’ll discuss and approve the project scope and final deliverables, and sign a contract that outlines those details.
Week 1: Plan + Design Discovery
In our first week of work, we’ll set clear project goals and parameters, audit existing collateral, and review a brand questionnaire in-person with core team members.
Week 2: Research + Moodboard
This week, we’ll gather information and conduct research on the project, conceptualize solutions, and pull references together. We’ll then create a design moodboard that illustrates key concepts, and review that moodboard with core team members.
Weeks 3-4: Concepts + Design Exploration
Major visual concepts begin taking shape at this point, with style elements forming around them. At the end of this phase, a presentation will be created of two visual concepts and their corresponding style variants.
Week 4: Design Review + Feedback
At the end of week 4, we will review the two visual concepts as a group and filter through the feedback of core team members. Clients then have several days to discuss internally, choose a single direction, and distill feedback.
Week 5: Refine Concept + Full Design Presentation
This week, we deliver a final brand expression guide presentation that includes a refined logo, brand assets, and colors and typography, as expressed through several key brand deliverable mockups (business cards, letterhead, case studies, presentations, etc). Core team members are invited to deliver feedback for final modifications.
Week 6: Perfect Final Design + Handoff
Finally, we deliver all assets for the brand: A suite of logos and assets in all needed file formats, as well as a comprehensive style guide and any other collateral included in the project scope.
Because any commentary on branding would be incomplete without a good blooper reel, we give you “15 of the Worst Corporate Rebrands Ever.” And finally, some advice from Fast Company on how to avoid a rebranding disaster.