Is blue brilliant for branding your business? I’m going to look in detail at the coolest color in your palette to see what the color blue symbolizes.
What does the color blue mean to you and your business? Try to think of the websites you have recently visited. I guarantee that blue is the most widespread branding color on the web. Why, because it safe. When your customers and web site visitors see blue branding, they feel safe and at peace. But does the color blue mean safe? Is the color blue from the bargain bucket and shows no thought or imagination? Let’s find out.
So if the color blue means too boring and basic, and you want some inspiration you should view our recent unleashed article called The Meaning Of Colors. This article looks at all the common branding around us and questions the meaning of each color and what business would best fit each color.
So the color blue meaning can be generally cool, inoffensive and easy to use. Let’s look at some of the other meanings associated with this color. While we look at the positive and negative words, think about your business, or branding. Ponder on what words you want your visitors or clients to associate with when they see your blue logo. Below on the left side are some of the negative words associated with blue. Have these in mind when using it in web design and branding. To the right, are some positive meanings.
Blue Branding & Design
Blue is the most common color not only in corporate business and branding but also in a survey of favourite colours. According to Live Science, they took 1,974 men and women and asked whether they preferred purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, or pink? The color blue symbolizes popularity. As it proved to be the most popular color for both sexes.
42% Men chose blue as their favourite color
Live Science
29% Women chose blue as their favourite color
I guess blue divides opinion. Because so many love it, it becomes the opposition to everyone else who wants something different. Like “Blue Cheese” you can love it, but the blue is mould! As you can probably tell from the video below, blue isn’t my favourite color in design, but you can’t escape it’s the easiest to use.
I’ve used blue in more web designs than any other color, so finding an example of blue design wasn’t difficult from my portfolio. Below is a screenshot of a Bournemouth based business that had already used blue successfully. Their business wasn’t working on mobile devices. So I took their current blue logo, strengthened it to a stronger navy blue and then rebuilt there site respecting there blue branding. The site has given them so much business from local enquiries since the changes. You can visit the portfolio for S & K Furniture by Design here.
Blue Color Scheme From Nature
Blue skies and blue sea are clearly seen around us in nature. But blue flowers aren’t so common. Finding blue in a garden isn’t impossible, but it’s generally looks more like a violet or purple color.
Below is a light blue color i spotted in the garden recently. As with other articles in this series of colors and there meanings, I’m going to use a photos to find a color scheme I can use for my next project. This is the blue flower in the picture below.
The process for getting a color scheme from nature is pretty straight forward.
Firstly I take a few digital photos of the color in nature I’m after. What I love about this process is nature can often deal you some interesting surprises.
Next I head on over to an online color scheme tool to extract the colors from the photo.
Finally I start to lock in the main colors, in this case the blue and mauve look great – see image (Hex #526EC0 and Hex # BDCEF8) The key is to make sure they are in contrast with at least one of the color, in this case a light pale blue ( Hex # F0FBFF)
The hex numbers above are there for you to use in you next web design or re-branding, let me know how you get on in the comments below.
Blue color psychology branding
As mentioned from the outset, examples of blue branding are everywhere. I’m sure there are many you can think of that aren’t seen below. Many are computer, technology and social media related. So if you are in that like of business, blue will keep you in a similar vein.
Initially we may connect blue with Facebook, Microsoft, Dell, LinkedIn, Intel, IBM Skype, Dropbox etc. In fact it’s difficult not to think of a business that hasn’t successfully used blue. But these are huge corporations who don’t need to stand out, they are established business. If you are just starting up you are going to need to grab local business attention. Will another blue branding help you stand out? I really like what Flickr did when it came along. It used blue but added an outrageous pink as well. It was so different it stood out in every way. They also added some very smart user interface and this immediately stood out and become the large photo share company that was recently bought out by Yahoo.
Negative meanings for blue include:
Sadness, cool and uncaring isn’t going to attract everyone, but actually these words are a little dependent on what shade of blue you are using. Navy blue isn’t cold at all, in fact Navy Blue immediately oozes authority and strength.
Ask yourself honestly, will using a particular shade of blue produce coldness, emotionless or an uncaring feeling? If yes, then is that what you want. If you are selling fridge freezers then it might be a perfect match.
Positive meanings for blue include:
Blue works in business as a branding color for several reasons. Firstly, because of it has a great popularity as a color. Secondly, it’s seen as a color of authority, loyalty, trust and integrity. These are perfect words for business. Finally it also is seen as a calming color, panicking in business doesn’t produce a good platform for clients.
Other positive words that are used with blue include reliability, responsibility, caring, devotion, peaceful and calmness.
Other facts about blue
Did you know that the color blue is often used to decorate offices? Why? Because research has shown that people are more productive in blue rooms!
The expression “Blue Monday” means feeling sad, often the feelings experienced when the weekend is over and its back to work on Monday!
The blue in cheese is mould, the same mould used for producing the virus-killing antibiotic penicillin.
“Singing the blues”. This is a music style characterized by the sometimes sadness or woeful tunes. From this you also have “Feeling blue” or “Getting the blues”
“Out of the blue” is an expression referring to something unexpected or unforeseen has happened.
Blue on the top of a tap is associated with cold water taps.
The color blue means cold or cool?
In conclusion, blue is the most popular color in every survey I’ve come across. Few clients mind a blue re-branding example. So here is my question. Do you think the color blue means cold or cool? Let me know your thoughts about the meaning of the color blue, by commenting below.