How to choose a brand colour palette — rules and examples

Your brand colours shape first impressions in 90 seconds or less. Get them wrong, and customers scroll past. Get them right, and you build trust, recognition, and sales.

Most businesses choose colours they like instead of colours that work. This costs them customers. Here’s how to pick a brand colour palette that connects with your audience and drives results.

Start with your brand personality

Your colours must match your brand’s character. A luxury law firm needs different colours than a children’s toy store.

Ask yourself: Is your brand professional or playful? Traditional or innovative? Calm or energetic? Your answers guide your colour choices.

Blue builds trust. Banks and tech companies use it heavily. Red creates urgency and passion. Food brands love it because it stimulates appetite. Green suggests nature and growth. Perfect for organic brands and financial services.

Yellow brings optimism and creativity. Orange feels friendly and confident. Purple signals luxury and imagination. Black means sophistication and power.

Pick one primary emotion you want customers to feel. Then choose colours that trigger that feeling.

Know your audience deeply

Your customers’ age, culture, and preferences matter more than your personal taste.

Younger audiences embrace bold, bright colours. Older customers prefer subtle, classic tones. Cultural background shapes colour meaning too. White means purity in Western cultures but mourning in some Eastern ones.

Research your competitors’ colours. You want to stand out, not blend in. If everyone in your industry uses blue, consider warm colours like orange or red.

Test colours with real customers before you commit. Show mockups and gather feedback. Their reactions tell you everything.

Follow the 60-30-10 rule

Professional designers use this simple formula for balanced colour palettes.

60% dominant colour: Your main brand colour. Use it for backgrounds, headers, and primary elements.

30% secondary colour: Supports your dominant colour. Often a neutral like grey, white, or cream.

10% accent colour: Creates visual interest and highlights important elements. Think buttons, links, and call-to-action elements.

This rule prevents colour overload. Too many bright colours confuse customers and weaken your message.

Airbnb uses coral as their dominant colour (60%), white and light grey as secondary colours (30%), and dark grey for accents (10%). The result feels fresh and approachable.

Consider accessibility from day one

Your colours must work for everyone, including people with visual impairments.

Check colour contrast ratios. Text needs enough contrast against backgrounds for easy reading. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines require a 4.5:1 ratio for normal text.

Don’t rely on colour alone to convey information. Use symbols, patterns, or text labels alongside colour coding.

Test your palette in greyscale. If important elements disappear, adjust your colours.

One in twelve men and one in 200 women have colour blindness. Your brand should welcome them too.

Real brand colour palette examples

Successful brands show how colour psychology works in practice.

Coca-Cola’s red creates excitement and energy. They’ve used the same shade for over 130 years. Consistency builds recognition.

Spotify’s bright green stands out in a sea of blue tech brands. It feels fresh and vibrant, matching their mission to energise through music.

Tiffany & Co. owns their signature blue. The colour became so associated with luxury that they trademarked it.

McDonald’s uses red and yellow to trigger hunger and happiness. The combination makes customers feel good about eating there.

These brands succeeded because their colours match their personality and audience perfectly. They didn’t choose colours randomly or follow trends.

Want to see more examples? Check out our brand guidelines examples to see how top companies use colour in their complete brand systems.

Build your complete brand system

Your colour palette works best as part of a complete brand language system.

Colours need typography, tone of voice, and visual style to create a cohesive brand experience. Each element should reinforce the others.

Document your colours with exact hex codes, RGB values, and usage guidelines. This keeps your brand consistent across all touchpoints.

Include examples of what to do and what not to do. Show your colours on different backgrounds and in various contexts.

Creating a complete brand language used to take weeks and cost thousands. Now tools like thebrandlanguage can generate your entire brand system, including colour palette, in just four minutes.

Your brand colour palette shapes every customer interaction. Choose colours that match your personality, connect with your audience, and support your business goals. Get this right, and watch recognition and trust grow with every touchpoint.

Ready to create your brand language? Create yours free → Four minutes. One link. Everyone on the same page.