In today’s world of marketing, branding is everything and this is a particularly important topic when it comes to color choices. Branding goes beyond the idea of just using your school or team colors and enters into the area of psychology. Colors make an impression and, depending upon color selections and combinations, it can be a complete loss or a total win. Research has shown that between 62% and 90% of people will make immediate judgments based on color, so you want the first reaction to be the right one.
The first thing you need to consider in color choices for your branding is your target audience. Younger people are attracted and react to colors in a different way than middle aged people. If you have a combination audience, remember to think beyond trend colors. These colors will quickly go out of fad and if you make the wrong choice, your scoreboard will look very dated.
What is the message that you want to send? Use your colors to make your statement, but be sure that it isn’t overdone. Too many people assume that the use of the color red will reflect strength, but if it is used badly, it can also reflect anger. You want to make sure color combinations with one bold color, but other colors should be accents only.
Have you ever noticed that the brands that you seem to remember have a maximum of three colors? Think about some of your favorite logos, most of them are two colors but three colors max. In graphic design and marketing there is the 60-30-10 rule that complies with the psychological attraction pattern of the human eye. Certain industries use color based on their psychological affect. Greens reflect nature and youth and are often used in medicine, science and government. Black reflects durability, strength and power and is seen in the branding for corporations, oil, fashion and financing.
Take a look at what your competition has done. Take the lessons learned (whether appealing or horrid) and make a judgment based on taking your branding to a completely new level. If you want your branding to set yourself apart from any of the others, do your due diligence to find colors that are totally unique.
An example might be to begin with one of the strong colors that are part of the school or team colors. Instead of using any of the other standard colors, choose a tone that is just slightly off the secondary color. If your desire is to go bold, make one color a more drastic shade and mute the others.
If you aren’t sure what colors complement each other you can use an online color palette. Remember that colors tend to appear differently depending upon the device. A pc screen or tablet color might look different on a scoreboard.
Once you have selected your color scheme or combinations, follow it through from electronic scoreboard to print and internet marketing. Developing your unique brand will differentiate you from the pack and make people remember who you are. That, is the ultimate purpose for branding and will demonstrate that you have done it right.