In Nature You Never Experience Color Alone

How are you coming along on crafting your brand story? Do you have a past, a place, character traits, and an aspirational personality created?

I want to hand you a big platter of “ah has” around color psychology. It sounds a little out there, but stick with me.

In nature, there are four distinct groups that colors fall into, as discovered by British color psychologist Angela Wright.

Note that in nature you never experience color alone, it is always surrounded by other colors.

When colors are seen surrounded by colors that are in the same group, we instinctively “read” their positive characteristics.

For example, it’s currently peach season in Maine. Those lovely ripe peaches pull me in, and I know the ones with more red on the skins will be juicier and sweeter. The pale yellow ones repel me, sending a signal that they are still firm and unsweetened.

This is nature alerting me to what is good to eat, and what I should leave alone. The pale yellow is in a different color group than the leaves and peachy reds of the ripened fruit, and the color disharmony repels.

Once the fruit ripens and turns peachy red, it is now in harmony with its surroundings and attracts us to partake.

You can apply the same concept to your brand. Choose colors all from the same group, and your brand will naturally attract.

Mix colors from different groups, and the disharmony repels.

This is the very basic premise of color psychology. It allows you to eliminate guesswork and apply objective rationale to choosing your color palette.

But wait!, you might be thinking, how do I know which group to use?

Color psychology extends beyond just color, each group also has certain personality characteristics that the colors communicate.

Remember when you were crafting your brand story and step #3 was to come up with a list of brand personality characteristics? Those will point the way to which group to choose.

You can also take my “What Season is My Brand” quiz, which will spit out an answer directly.