Choosing the right colors and fonts for your brand or business is a crucial aspect of effective designs. Colors and fonts have the power to evoke emotions and create a strong visual identity for your brand. In this podcast, You will explore the importance of colors and fonts in branding and learn practical tips on how to choose one for your business.
And this one skill can also be lucarative if you want to take up brand identity projects. Other than your own business you can also create this for other businesses by becoming a Freelancer(Online or Offline).
Colors have a profound impact on human emotions, feelings and can influence how people perceive and interact with your brand. It can have negative vibes as well as positve vibes.Each color has its own meaning and associations, making it essential to choose colors that align with your brand’s message and values.
For example, the color red is often associated with feelings of danger and hunger. This is why many food and beverage companies, such as KFC, Coca Cola, and Pepsi, use red in their logos.
Let me give you another example which is the colour Blue.Blue is often associated with trust and integrity, making it a popular choice for corporate branding.
Companies like Citibank, Dell, and HP use blue extensively in their branding.
Start by researching the top brands in your industry. Look at their websites, social media posts, and other creatives to identify the colors they use.
Pay attention to their primary color, secondary color, neutral colors (used for backgrounds and text), and accent color (used for design elements that need to stand out). This research will give you a good idea of the color palette that is effective in your Business niche.
You can also find inspiration for color palettes on websites like Dribbble and Behance, where professional designers showcase their work. However, avoid copying color codes directly. Instead, look for similar colors that align with your Business Category.
Fonts, like colors, have the power to evoke emotions. There are different types of fonts, including serif, sans serif, script, and slab serif. Each font type has its own characteristics and associations, and choosing the right font can greatly impact how your brand is perceived by your audience.
Serif fonts, characterized by their pointy edges, have a traditional and elegant feel.
Sans serif fonts, on the other hand, have a clean and modern look without the pointy ends.
Script fonts resemble cursive handwriting and can add a personal and creative touch to your brand.
Slab serif fonts have a bold and strong appearance, with slab-like edges instead of pointy ones.
To choose the right font for your brand, start by looking at the fonts used by successful brands in your industry.Pay attention to the font type and style they use, and consider how it aligns with your brand’s personality and message.Google Fonts is a great resource for finding free fonts that are similar to the ones used by top brands.
Install the chosen fonts in your design tool, such as Canva, and use them consistently across your brand’s materials.
While it can be tempting to use multiple fonts to create a unique look, I recommended to stick to one or two fonts to keep it Uncomplicated and simple. The title font can be different from the body font, but make sure they complement each other and align with your brand.
Having the ability to choose the right colors and fonts for a brand is a valuable skill that can be monetized. I personally charge between 6K to 10K for choosing Brand colors and Fonts for my Clients. You can too.Online Freelance websites are a great platform to offer these services.
You can create a listing showcasing your expertise in choosing colors and fonts.This can attract clients who are looking to improve their branding. Additionally, you can approach local businesses that have poor branding and offer your services to help them enhance their visual identity.
However, colors and fonts are just the beginning of creating a strong brand identity. Once you have your Brand color and Brand font ready then you got to start doing rest of the things like logo design, brand identity design, website design, and more. These additional services will help you create a complete and impactful brand presence for your business and your clients.
By researching successful brands in your industry and understanding the associations of different colors and fonts, you can make informed decisions that align with your brand’s message and values. Remember to maintain consistency and balance in your design choices.
PODCAST EPISODE TRANSCRIPT :
0:00:02 – (Santhosh): Hi, this is Santhosh Shetty here from design clans. And welcome to the uncomplicated designing podcast. So in today’s podcast, you’re going to learn how to choose the right colors and fonts for your brand or business. And before we begin, if you’re somebody who’s looking to create effective and professional designs, then this podcast is for you. So don’t forget to subscribe or follow the podcast. Let’s begin.
0:00:23 – (Santhosh): Colors are very fascinating thing. I have been creating color palettes and brand identities for my clients for quite some time right now. So initially when I started off, I realized that colors can bring out emotions from people. And that is one of the reason why different businesses use different kinds of color palettes. Every color has a meaning associated to it. So if I have to give you an example, let’s take the color red.
0:00:53 – (Santhosh): So, red can bring emotions of feelings, of danger, hunger. That’s why you see red used a lot in logos of food and beverage industries like KFC, Coca Cola, Pepsi, you name it, most of them use it. And similarly, even when we are talking about danger or warnings, then even there, the color red is used. If I have to give you another example, let’s talk about the color blue. Color blue is more of a corporate color because it brings emotions of trust, integrity.
0:01:26 – (Santhosh): And that is why you will see this used a lot in corporate branding. All these top MNCs in the World bank, financial institutions, all of them use the color blue. Like examples can be Citibank, we can talk about Dell, HP, you name it. There are many out there. Most of them use blue. So similarly, every business category has different colors associated to it. So for you to understand what is the color associated with your business, you’ll have to do a little bit of research.
0:02:00 – (Santhosh): So this is what I would do generally. So whatever the business category is, first thing I’m going to do is I’m going to look at the top brands in the world in the same business category, maybe list out around four to five of them and then create this color palette. Looking at their website or maybe their social media post or any of their creatives, that is going to tell me a lot. So looking at these creatives, you will have a fair idea of what are the different colors they use, what is their primary color, what is their secondary color, what are their neutral colors. Neutral colors are the colors which are used in the background and for text.
0:02:39 – (Santhosh): And you will also get to know what is their accent color. Accent color is the one which is used for simple design illustrations or even in buttons, maybe lines, maybe some shapes, which are being used in design creatives. So all of those can be accent colors. So to keep it simple, all you have to do is pick a primary color, a secondary color, neutral color, which is going to be your background. Ideally, it’s going to be white or black or dark gray.
0:03:12 – (Santhosh): And then the accent color, whichever is. When you pick an accent color, it has to be bright and it has to pop. It has to get somebody’s attention. When someone is going through your website or maybe ad creative, it has to get their attention. So you need to choose a contrasting color compared to the primary color that you have. And if you want to look for inspirations, there are great websites where you can go.
0:03:39 – (Santhosh): One of them is called dribble.com, dribbble.com. Another one is behance.com. You can also check Google images for color palettes for any business category. And in dribble and behance, you will get some great color palettes and brand identities. This is uploaded by designers from all over the world, all professional designers, and they like to showcase their work. So going there, you can also do some research in these sites and get inspirations to how your color palette can be.
0:04:13 – (Santhosh): Do not copy paste. Find colors similar to it. Just don’t go and copy the same color code and use it for your business. Don’t do that. There are a lot of variations when it comes to color codes as well. So keep it similar, but don’t copy. So that’s with colors. Let’s talk about fonts. Fonts also bring emotions and feelings just like colors. So there are different kinds of fonts. One of the oldest font is serif. So serif font is where each of these alphabets end with a pointy edge. It looks like shoes connected to it. And then we have San serif. San serif are the ones which do not have that pointy ends on the Alphabet. And then we have script font.
0:04:58 – (Santhosh): Script font is more of cursive in nature. It looks like it’s handwritten. I have to give you an example. Script font logos can be Coca Cola, Kellogg’s. These are all script font logos. And then there is slab serif. Like the word slab, it is again a serif font. Instead of the pointy edges to the Alphabet, it will have like a slab kind of an edge. And there are many more. But most widely used on the Internet is serif and San serif.
0:05:29 – (Santhosh): And just to make your creatives look beautiful, some of them also use script fonts. So how do you decide what is the font that you have to choose. So again, same process. Look at the top brands in your business niche. Look at the fonts that they are using. Understand what kind of a font it is, whether it is serif San serif script and then go to Google fonts, google.com. That’s a great place to download fonts and it’s completely for free.
0:06:02 – (Santhosh): So there look for fonts which are very, very similar to the fonts that you saw in the top brands. And once you find them, just download it, install it in your design tool, whatever that is. If you’re using canva, then do that. I use canva for almost every design that I do. So I upload all the fonts over there and I use it. And if you’re wondering how many fonts do you need? So what I usually do is see, to keep it simple, you can just pick one font which can be title and which can also be the body text.
0:06:34 – (Santhosh): If you want to get a little creative then you can have your title font to be different like how I have in design clans. And the body font can be different. If you want to get even more creative then the big heading can be your script font and the next one can be again, the title can be a different font and primary can be another font. Although it is very creative, it is also difficult to maintain this in most of your creatives. So I would recommend to use either one font or maximum two.
0:07:07 – (Santhosh): This is a very simple thing to do and a very very useful skill to have. So if you want to get into freelancing and all that then this is a must have skill. I charge between 6000 indian rupees just to choose a color palette and the right fonts for your business. So that is how valuable that is. And it only takes about maybe three to 4 hours to get this done. You can list this as a service in any of these freelance websites and start generating additional income source.
0:07:39 – (Santhosh): You can also do it offline. You can connect with companies, local companies. If you see their branding is like very bad. The colors they are using is not good, their fonts are not good. You can always go and suggest them that you will choose the right colors and right fonts for their business. And trust me, everybody wants their brand to look great so they will be willing to pay. That is just one part of it. And after that you can get into logo designing and brand identity designing, website designing and all of those other things which makes the brand complete.
0:08:15 – (Santhosh): However, colors and fonts are the absolute core. So go ahead, try it out and if you find it useful, let me know, send me a message, send me an email. Or you can simply comment under this podcast as well. So that’s all my friend. If you got value out of this podcast and if you liked it, then you can support my podcast by doing these three things. One is you can follow my podcast on any of these music platforms like Spotify, Google, Audible, Apple, or whichever platform you’re listening to me on.
0:08:46 – (Santhosh): And give me a five star and give me a like and also share it on social media or with somebody who you think will find the same podcast useful. Before you go, there are one more thing. If you want to simplify designing for your business or add an additional income source using uncomplicated designing, then please check my products out. You can go to ww dot designclans.com and check what I have there. I am pretty sure you’ll find my courses very useful because it’s going to completely transform the way you create design.
0:09:20 – (Santhosh): And thank you so much for listening to uncomplicated designing podcast. This is Santhosh Shetty here again from design clans. Have a wonderful day. I’ll see you soon.
Found the page useful? Share it with someone who will find it useful
An Exclusive Private Community of Uncomplicated Designers.
