People often recognise a brand by its colour and lettering before they read a single word. That’s why choosing them deserves more thought than picking your favourite colour or the font that looks nice today. Here is the approach I use with clients.
Start with meaning, not taste
Before you open a colour picker, write down three words you want people to feel about your business. A hospital might choose calm, trustworthy, clean. A youth fashion brand might choose bold, playful, confident. Every colour and font decision should support those words. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t belong, however much you like it.
Building a colour palette
A working palette has three layers:
- One primary colour. This is the colour people will remember you by. Use it on your logo, buttons and key highlights.
- One or two secondary colours. These support the primary one and add variety to graphics, backgrounds and illustrations.
- Neutrals. A near-black, a near-white and one or two greys. They carry most of your text and layouts, and they let your brand colour stand out instead of shouting everywhere.
A useful rule of thumb is roughly 60% neutrals, 30% secondary and 10% primary. Brands that use their main colour on everything tend to feel loud and tiring.
Check these before you commit
- Contrast. Text must be easy to read on your backgrounds. Use a free contrast checker and aim for the WCAG AA level.
- Dark mode. Many people browse with dark mode turned on. Make sure your colours and logo still work on a dark background.
- Print and screen. Colours shift between a phone screen and a printed sign. Test both before you print 1,000 brochures.
- Your competitors. If every company in your industry is blue, a different colour may help you stand out.
Choosing fonts
Most brands need only two fonts:
- A display font for headings. This is where personality lives: an elegant serif, a strong geometric sans, or something more expressive.
- A text font for paragraphs, menus and forms. It should be calm and very readable at small sizes, especially on phones.
Pair fonts that contrast clearly, such as a serif heading with a sans-serif body, rather than two fonts that are almost the same. Make sure your fonts support every language you write in, and check the licence before using them in your logo or on your website.
Avoid chasing trends
Gradients, neon colours and trendy fonts can look fresh for a season and dated the next. A simple test: would this still feel right in five years? If you want to follow a trend, use it in campaigns and social posts, not in your core identity.
Write it down
Once you’ve chosen, record everything in a short brand guide: exact colour codes (HEX for screens, CMYK for print), font names and sizes, and examples of correct and incorrect use. It takes an afternoon, and it keeps your brand consistent for years, no matter who designs your next poster.
Good colour and type are invisible in the best way: customers simply remember you.
Need help building a palette and type system for your brand? Get in touch.