How to Pick Your App Colour Scheme

Colour is one of the quickest ways that we can recognise a business, so when it comes to selecting a colour scheme for your app, you’ll want to choose one that represents your business and will remain in the minds of your potential customers even when they don’t have your app open,

Now, the great thing about AppInstitute’s app builder is that it will automatically select colour schemes for your based on your existing branding and website to ensure a fluid transition across all branding. However, if you don’t have a current website or are perhaps launching a new business from scratch and the development of an app forms part of your plans, you’ll need to think carefully about how colour represents you and what you have to offer.

Colour and business branding

Colour is one of the most effective methods of communication, with us instantly being able to recognise big brands based on the colour we see without even thinking about it. Colour can convey a message much faster than words ever can, for instance when you see red you associate with danger whilst blue can have a calming, relaxing influence. As a business owner, you’ll need to tap into this psychology of colour when choosing the palette for your branding.

The fast food industry is a great example of how colour can influence, but may also need to be adaptable and changed should views change. A market once dominated by reds and yellows, think McDonalds and KFC, which people associate with speed and efficiency, as we expect from a fast food outlet, has seen a slight shift in recent years.

McDonald’s epitomise this change more than many others as whilst they have kept the iconic and instantly recognisable yellow ‘M’, much of their branding now is a combination of green and other natural colours to try and promote/create the illusion that their food is a more healthy option compared to the rest of the market.

Green is a great colour choice if you want people to associate your brand with nature, health and well being, so it’s certainly no coincidence that McDonalds went in this direction with the overall demand for healthier eating and improved lifestyle. They want their customers to subconsciously think it’s still okay to eat their food as it’s healthy and ethically sourced by working away at the emotional responses we all have to colour.

Colours and what they represent

So as we’ve already touched on, colours can represent different things and lead us to have different emotional responses. Here’s a quick rundown of what a range of different colours can relate to:

• Blue: Trust, calmness, integrity and stability. A colour which represents tranquillity and cleverness.
• Red: Speed, efficiency, passion and power. A very emotionally intense colour that can raise the heart rate whilst being highly visible.
• Green: Harmony, balance, safety and growth. As the colour of nature, green is a restful colour suggesting endurance and positivity.
• Yellow: Cheerful, warming, intelligent and energetic. The colour of the sun, yellow is attractive and can associate a brand with joy and happiness.
• Purple: Luxury, wealth, power and dignity. A colour associated with royalty, purple is popular with high end, corporate businesses as it combines the calmness of blue and the energy of red.
• Orange: Happiness, enthusiasm, creativity and joy. Orange is a sporty colour that combines the happiness associated with yellow and the energy from red.
• Black: Power, mystery, elegance and strength. Black is a bold colour choice and showcases total belief in a brand and what you are offering to a customer.

It is important to bear in mind that whilst you’ll undoubtedly have your favourite colours, perhaps based on the football team you love, it isn’t always advisable to go with a colour you like for your business branding.

The colour or colours you choose for your business and app need to reflect your brand promise, the market you are targeting and the personality of your business as a whole. This could result in you selecting a colour that you’re not 100% keen on but actually perfectly reflects what your business is all about and the type of clientele you want to draw in.

There’s also the option of course for you to choose more than one colour for your business, which is not a problem at all. However, bear in mind that colour has the biggest impact when presented in large doses, so the more colours you choose, the increased likelihood there is that you’ll dilute the emotional response you’re looking for by neutralising the impact of your primary colour.

More colours can add interest and depth, but just make sure they are still conveying what you want and need them to convey.

Tools to help

Now you know a bit more about colour and the impact they can have on your business and the messages you are looking to get across, the fun can really start as you begin to experiment, and there are a number of tools you can use to help:

Coolers.co

This is an excellent place to start as you can play around with the available colour palette through a variety of tools until you find just the colour you’re looking for. Once you’re happy, you can export your final colour in a range of formats to see how it looks on a wide variety of different materials and platforms.

If you’re really struggling and want some inspiration, you can also browse other completed creations that could help you identify a starting point in the colour creation process for your brand.

Colourcode

Not quite sure which colour you want to go for, Colourcode presents you with virtually any colour you can think of from the second you land on the site. Move your cursor around to be showcased a whole host of different options before choosing one of the many tools to refine and get it just the way you want it.

Canva Colour Palette Generator

Canva is a great design tool to have in your arsenal, but it can also help you identify particular colours that you’re already attracted to. If you’ve found an image or photo in which the colours used are the ones you believe will effectively represent you brand, you can upload it to their colour palette generator and instantly be presented with the details of those colours. You’ll also get their hex numbers so you can take that information away and use moving forward.

Selecting a colour for your business branding and to use moving forward in your app colour scheme can be a daunting prospect, however understanding the psychology of colour, exactly what you want your business to represent and experimenting to find exactly what works can help you identify the perfect palette for future business use.