Color triggers emotional and physiological responses before your brain processes language.

What does that mean for your brand?

Your brand’s color palette is your first impression. Clients are deciding whether to stay and learn more or peace out before they ever read a word of your website or content. 

But while color is one of the most important elements of your brand, it’s also one a lot of people get wrong.

This post walks you through:

• What color psychology really is (and how people get it wrong!)
• How neuroscience impacts your brand’s conversion rate
• What makes a color “luxury” 
• The 4 questions you need to ask before choosing a brand color

What is color psychology?

Color triggers emotional and neurological responses before your conscious thought processes kick in. 

When a potential client sees your brand, they react to the colors before ever responding to your headline, tagline, or bio. 

Color psychology looks at how specific colors impact our mood, feelings, and behavior. 

Here’s the problem. Generic color charts are based on Western, corporate research that doesn’t account for culture, context, or community. 

Traditional color psychology says:

• Red = passion
• Blue = trustworthy
• Gold = luxury
• Green = fresh

But that is incredibly limiting. And flat out wrong. Different people respond to different colors based on their culture, context, and community. 

Yes, color has a significant impact on your potential clients. But that response is not always aligned with traditional color psychology. 

The “right” colors are the colors that are true to your founder story, connect with your ideal client, and create the feelings you want your clients to have. 

There is no universal “luxury” color. 

As a designer with over 15 years of experience, I can tell you that no two color palettes ever look exactly the same. And I’ve built brands for everyone from sex coaches to financial advisors, wedding rental companies, and Latina healthcare brands. 

There is no magic rinse and repeat color psychology formula for your brand. It all comes back to who you are as a founder, your mission and vision, and the clients you want to work with.

Why do certain colors hurt your brand? 

Our brains process color 60,000 times faster than text. 

That means our emotional impression has kicked in long before our rational mind engages with a brand. 

Color temperatures trigger different neurochemical responses, releasing dopamine or creating trust and urgency as soon as someone lays eyes on your brand. 

What does that mean for your brand? Choosing a color palette is the most important decision you’ll make. In fact, 84% of consumers say color accounts for more than half of the factors in their product purchasing decision. 

The wrong colors turn your potential clients off before they’ve even had a chance to read your website or learn about what you do. 

You want to create a color palette that builds trust and creates positive feelings for your target audience. 

What colors do luxury brands use?

Luxury doesn’t come in a single color or shade. 

Conventional color psychology will tell you black, white, and gold are the go-to “luxury” colors… but luxury is an emotion, not a color palette. 

If you choose your brand’s color palette based on someone else’s definition of luxury, you’ll end up looking like everyone else. And more importantly, you’ll lose the cultural resonance that makes your ideal client feel seen. 

A brand looks and feels luxurious when it creates a perception of exclusivity, quality, and desire. Those feelings can be achieved with an infinite combination of colors!

Too many Latina and women of color founders have been told to tone down their aesthetic in order to look “professional.” 

Consider this your permission slip to boldly claim the colors that fill your soul and speak to your target audience. A talented designer can turn your colors into a luxury brand (if that’s your goal). 

You never need to dim your light to fit someone else’s ideals. 

How does color work for your brand?

Color isn’t a standalone element of your brand. The meaning and feeling that color creates is activated when color works together with your typography, photos, and messaging. 

We always start the brand design process by using visual references to test the intended emotional tone before we ever select a single color. 

The mood boards we create are the first step to creating harmony between your color palette and the other brand design elements. 

We also reign in your color usage. Our brand design framework identifies dominant, secondary, and accent colors to ensure your brand never becomes muddled or unclear. We also make sure you have an appropriate range of colors to create proper contrast for maximum legibility no matter where you show up. 

Part of our process is to show you how to lock in your color system and use the correct color combinations across every touchpoint in your business. This is how we create a cohesive brand on your Instagram, website, business card, and email signature.

Are my brand colors working? 

Sometimes clients come to us with an existing brand, unsure if they need to refresh or start over.

If you’re considering your current brand colors, pay close attention to:

• Instagram feed: Is it visually cohesive or a little chaotic?
• Ideal client: Do your colors create the right feelings for your people?
• Pricing: Do your colors align with the prices you’re charging (or want to charge)? 
• Your story: Does your current color palette honor and celebrate who you are? Or did you erase the best parts of yourself in an effort to fit in?

Your brand color palette probably needs some work if you find yourself consistently attracting clients who aren’t a good fit. 

If you’re embarrassed to share your brand… that’s another red flag that your colors aren’t working. 

You deserve to have a brand built with colors that feel connected, personal, and intentional. 

The 4 questions to ask before choosing brand colors 

At Hola Luz, we walk our clients through a specific process to help them identify the right brand colors for their business, personality, and ideal client. 

If you’re thinking about your brand colors, here are 4 questions you can ask yourself right now before selecting a single color:

1. Who is your ideal client and what emotional state do you want her to arrive in when she reaches your brand?
2. What’s your founder story? What colors live in your memory, your culture, and your why?
3. What is the one emotion you want your brand to own? 
4. What colors are dominant in your industry? Do you want to align with those colors or deliberately disrupt the status quo?

When you’re ready to upgrade your brand with a color palette chosen for you and your mission, vision, and purpose (instead of a generic, outdated color psychology chart), we’re here to guide you every step of the way. 

Click here to check out the Brand Design services at Hola Luz!