How To Create Striking Color Combinations For Your Business Logos?

Human brains are hard-wired to respond to striking colors. Evolution has taught us that green means sustenance and shade, while red is danger.

We take these associations with us when we make buying decisions as consumers. Advertisers know this, marketers know this, and designers know this.

So every time you see a business logo design, know that somebody has chosen these colors intentionally and specifically to convey certain information and influence a certain action.

In this article, we’ll talk about how those decisions are made, and what tools help during this decision-making, and in the end, we’ll share an extensive list of color combinations that you can use to inspire your next logo design.

But first, let’s revisit the color wheel for a second.

The color wheel is going to be your most important tool for this exercise. It was invented by Sir Isaac Newton. He arranged the seven main colors in the rainbow onto a disc and called it the color wheel. It’s divided into two main categories of color: cool and warm.

Cool: Blue, Green, and Violet

Warm: Red, Orange, and Yellow

When creating color combinations for your business logo design, switch between color temperatures for a more layered and meaningful logo.

Types of Logo Color Combinations

These 6 are the most common types of color combinations found in branding. While these can be manipulated and modified to suit brand goals, treat them as stepping stones for your wider color combination work.

● Monochromatic: The same base color with its various tints, tones, and shades. The effect is pleasant and harmonious.

● Complementary: When you choose opposing colors from the wheel. It creates the most striking contrasts.

● Analogous: When you use two or more colors that sit next to each other on the wheel. It’s done for a harmonious effect with a hint of activity.

● Triadic: Choosing three equidistant colors from the wheel. Similar to complementary colors, they create contrast but on a loud note.

● Split Complementary: Pick a color from the wheel then select two that sit on either side of its complementary color. It’s contrast but more balanced.

● Tetradic/Double-Complementary: Create a rectangle on the color wheel and you’ve got your tetradic theme. It’s got more variety but requires skill to pull off.

How to Choose the Right Logo Color Palette?

The decision process consists of multiple steps. We’ve simplified it for you by grouping the actions together into stages on the basis of fundamental principles, best practices, and a bit of science.

Here’s how you start.

Pay attention to these three core areas.

Your brand’s overall theme, the industry you belong to, and the target market you serve should be at the forefront of all your design decision-making. If your design aligns with their expectations, you’ve hit gold.

● Your Industry

Some colors are more prevalent in specific industries than others. Tech and finance, for example, increasingly use blue in their color palette. The luxury fashion industry is predominantly black in its logos. Restaurants, especially quick service restaurants like all the large pizza and burger chains, prefer red and yellow in their branding.

Choosing a color palette or a main color that matches the industry standard may help you gain instant recognition as belonging to a certain market. Your consumers take a look at and you may be able to immediately know what your business is about.

On the flip side, going against the tide can also be a huge advantage. It could give you a distinct identity and separate you from the crowd. But whether or not should you do it, and how much will it help you, depends on the consumer base you serve and whether this bold streak comes naturally to your brand.

Which brings us to our next two steps…

● Your Brand Theme

What is your brand’s stylistic or emotional theme? Is it luxe and feminine? Strong and earthy? Does it offer dependability or a promise to take you on a ride you’ve never been on before?

Your brand’s inherent character and personality should guide your color choices. Some colors are daring and love the attention they get. Others are demure and prefer to work in a team. Your goal is to match the brand’s theme with the color’s theme.

If your brand offers a unique perspective that others in your sector don’t, give it a unique color palette different from the industry standard to make your brand noticeable from a distance.

● Your Audience

Does your core audience have certain collective traits that make them more responsive to certain color ideas, even if those ideas are a bit out there?

When Instagram came up with its gradient logo more than a decade ago, it was a shocking move as the social media landscape back then was a flat design world decked in all blue.

But Instagram knew what it was doing. Catering to an audience that was all about visuals, and the more vivid the better, Instagram gave itself a visual identity that resonated with its core consumers. That’s why, despite the initial backlash, the company stayed true to its vibrant identity that’s on-point with the brand.

Some gold standards to follow:

The best logo color combinations in the world comply with the following best practices in design.

● 3 Colors in the palette are enough. Two are ideal but three should be enough. One, as the main color, and the rest as accents or neutrals. Anything more can be chaotic and must strictly depend on specific design objectives. But if you can limit it to three and no more, you’ve achieved nirvana.

● Aim for contrast — even a subtle one will do. Instill the right balance of yin and yang in your logo by using colors that contrast most pleasantly. Contrast will help colors stand out and make your brand logo more visible.

● Don’t forget the emotion of the color. Colors have their own moods and emotions. Slight variations in tints and shades can create striking effects. Choose what aligns with your brand goals.

Color psychology will play a role.

We’ve talked about color psychology at length here, but to give you a brief recap, it’s the relationship between colors and how they influence human behavior and emotions. Some colors make us feel happy, others urge us to take action, and some we’ve associated with mourning and loss.

How you organize color combinations for your business logo must stem from a careful study of color psychology. Lay out your brand goals and figure out which colors help you achieve those goals. Want to show your association with earth and nature? Green and brown are perfect. Stability and trust are best communicated with a deep blue shade.

Whichever decisions you make, find out what emotions your colors are bringing to the table.

50 Color Combinations for an Irresistible Logo Design

To help you choose better, we’ve arranged these color combinations into themes. Pick a theme and choose a logo color scheme that fits.

1. Popular logo color ideas

You’ll see these logo color combinations everywhere in branding. They are popular for a reason, and that reason is that they work. Each color combination in this section has transcended industries, cultures, and markets.

Choose one of them to follow the lead of the best. The potential of going wrong here is very minimal.

• Black and white
• Red and white
• Green and white
• Red and yellow
• Blue and White

2. Bold and sexy logo colors

These color combinations are perfect for a brand logo design that wants to convey high energy. These colors offer the highest contrast and help you create a dynamic color palette for your brand.

• Blue and Yellow
• Seagreen and Fuschia
• Navy Blue and Burgundy
• Purple, Periwinkle, and Mustard
• Turquoise, Magenta, and Seaweed green

3. Playful and fun logo colors

If you are creating a bar logo or a music logo design where the dominant emotion is excitement and action, a playful color palette will help you do the job. These color schemes are ideal for all kinds of youthful brands with a lively identity.

• Red and Sea green
• Barbie Pink, Light Mustard, and Teal
• Pink, Yellow, and Blood Orange
• Cobalt, Hot Pink, and Yellow
• Blue, Yellow, and Green

4. Calm and peaceful logo colors

Cool colors create a calming brand identity. Think blue, green, and purple. Combining these colors with neutrals such as black or white can bring the temperature further down in the design. But if you want to infuse some warmth, think of shades of red or yellow for a hint of warm accents.

• Navy blue, Mauve, and Grey
• Turquoise and Golden Brown
• Sterling blue, Pearl, and Pale Dogwood
• Soft blue and Dry Grass
• Blush Pink and Teal

5. Natural and earthy logo colors

Brewery or beer logos, coffee logos, vintage logos, etc., all use a natural color palette with warm and earthy shades used prominently in the scheme. Cooler hues like variations of green strike the perfect match with these strong earthy colors. But pink and purple can also be added for a hint of playfulness.

• Mustard, Purple, and Teal
• Rust, Teal, and Terracotta
• Caramel and Espresso
• Cinnamon and Leaf Green
• Cactus and Teak

6. Tech and futuristic logo colors

The tech world is dominated by blue, but that’s no reason to bow down to just one color and call it your lord. Take a look at all the beautiful shades in the world — a dazzling pink, a shy lavender, and striking neon green — and use all these to give a brighter identity to the drab design world of technology.

• Purple, Magenta, and Blue
• Sky Blue and Dark Grey
• Lilac, Sea Green, and Blue
• Blue, Moon White, and Neon Green
• Neon Green, Forest Green, and Powder blue

7. Serious and professional logo colors

There are certain industries where you cannot experiment too much with your logo design. A finance logo, for example, must have an executive look with a very clean color palette. To strike the notes of dependability and stability, consider these color schemes for your logo design.

• Egg yolk, Grey, and Slate
• Forest Green, White, Pale pink
• Charcoal and Tan
• Green and Lime
• Spearmint and Cream

8. Electrifying and energetic logo colors

For super-charged brand identity, you want colors in your logo design that are bright, dazzling, and breathtaking. Think of electric blue, all shades of neon, shocking pinks, and more.

• Turquoise, Purple, and Orange
• Lavender, Dark Grey, and Leaf Green
• Purple, Green, and Black
• Sea Green and Mustard
• Neon Yellow and Grey

9. Luxurious and affluent logo colors

If your local business is catering to a high-end, exclusive clientele, you need a fitting logo design that can resonate with your target market. Brighter colors won’t do. Look for muted shades and quieter tones. Create a logo design color palette that can reflect stealth wealth.

• Grey and Blueberries
• Lighblue and Gold
• Azul, Dark Rose, and Blush
• Dutch orange, Ruby, and Peignoir
• Champagne, Marble, and Velvet

10. Soft and feminine logo colors

While the feminine aesthetic is a visually diverse subject, certain colors speak to the softer image of it. Champagne, teal, and lavender are some colors that give off a feminine vibe along with a professional feel.

• Butterscotch, Blush, Coral
• Melon, Champagne, Burnt Umber
• Petal pink, Pale Pink, and Lavender
• Rose and Blush
• Orange and Sunset

Conclusion

Creating well-coordinating color combinations is a huge part of the logo design process. You have to make sure that your logo colors resonate with your audience, help you establish a connection with your industry, and match the larger theme of your brand’s visual identity.

By paying attention to how colors respond to each other and how their psychology plays with human behavior, you can create color palettes that provide balance, meaning, and dimensions to your local business logo.