Start With a Feeling, Not a Favorite
Most color advice starts with a chart.
Blue means trust, green means growth, yellow means joy, and so on. I love a good color chart, they are incredibly helpful. But if that’s the only think you look at when selecting colors for your brand, you’re skipping an important part.
When I start a brand with a client, we don’t start with color (even though that seems an obvious foundation to lay). We start with a feeling. One of the first questions in my brand questionnaire is this:
What do you want people to feel when they land on your site? Everything about the palette comes from the answer.
Why feeling comes first
Color is one of the first things people notice. Color charts exist for a reason, because our minds associate certain colors with certain emotions or experiences. Some of this is, of course, personal, while some is universal. Because color sets a feeling and helps people connect with you before anyone reads a word, getting intentional at the foundational level is necessary.
But feeling is only the beginning. When you describe how you want someone to feel, you're really describing who she is and what she needs. That's identity. And when a brand speaks to someone's core, she feels like it gets her. That's where connection starts.
I say this to clients often: think about the people you want to work with, or the customers you hope will buy from you. Decide what you want them to feel. It's not about you. You need to connect with it and see your vision in it, but the palette is for them.
How to choose your brand colors, feeling first
Name the feeling.
Write three words for how you want someone to feel when s/he finds you, or after s/he's worked with you or used your product.
Turn each feeling into identity.
Next to each word, write what it says about the person you serve. “Calm” might mean she's overwhelmed and needs room to think. “Capable” might mean she's been underestimated and wants to be taken seriously.
Gather, then look for patterns.
Collect six to nine images that carry those feelings: places, textures, objects, brands from any industry. Then notice which colors keep showing up. Those are your starting point, not your favorite color.
Give every color a job.
A strong palette usually has five roles: a light background, a primary color people remember, a secondary that supports it, an accent used sparingly, and a dark color for text. Put your text color on your background and your primary. If you have to squint, go darker.
The rule I break on purpose
You'll hear that every industry has its colors. Wellness is green. Finance is blue. Bakeries are brown.
If green makes sense for a wellness business, we can use it, but we'll try to use it differently. If the only reason is “it's wellness,” that's never a good reason, and I'll leave green out almost entirely. Choosing a color because everyone in your industry uses it is the fastest way to look like everyone in your industry.
How I chose Saphē's colors
The brands and websites I design and build for clients can be bold and edgy or subtle and calm. But I wanted the women I work with to feel with Saphē is a feeling of trust to bring their vision to life, not bring my vision into their brand. So my palette carries those goals. When I built my own brand, I wanted it to feel clean, elevated, and clear.
Antique gold is a tie to something that endures the test of time and is known for its details. Olive green is a nod to stable growth and the durability of the tree. Cream and navy cover the basics, and they're my way of being different from standard black and white. I don’t want Saphē to be a source of distraction, but rather connection and creating room for someone else.
That's the feeling-first method in practice. I didn't start with colors I liked. I started with how I wanted my clients to feel, and chose colors that could hold it.
Start with your three words
If you take one thing from this post, let it be the first step.
Before you open Canva or scroll Pinterest, write down how you want people to feel. Your palette will be easier to choose, and easier to stick with, once you know what it's for.
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