Colour Psychology

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged my inspirations. And whilst I’m much more inspired by Autumn and Spring than I am Summer, the fact is that I just didn’t get round to photographing as much as I would have liked over the last few months. I suspect that my lack of time to photograph still lifes has much more to do with the fact that my life has been turned upside down and inside out with our house renovation than anything else. And whilst the house certainly isn’t finished, I was so inspired by just how beautiful it’s all looking with the light flooding in under the veranda and through our bifold doors that I just had to snip the last of the colour from the garden and put together a hasty still life.

The colours of this late Autumn arrangement look decidedly festive don’t they? So much so that I can’t decide whether it’s late Autumn or early Winter – I’m thinking that with this seasonal palette they can only be Winter.

I never cease to be inspired by what’s going on in the garden. I love flowers and almost always have a bunch or two plonked in vases around the house. There’s something reassuring about their fragile beauty. When the builders cleared their stuff out of the new dining room one of the first things I did was grab a few stems and pop them in a pint glass. Elegant, no, cheering – absolutely. There was something just beautiful about seeing a small spot of beauty in amongst the chaos.

Aren’t these colours just divine? Late Autumn colour verging, very much, on Winter colours. The colours are getting deeper and only the strongest plants will survive the frosts and snow to come.

Tagged as in Colour Psychology, Inspirations

Remember that series I wrote waaaay back in January about Colour Psychology? I wrote a series of posts about the seasonal colour personalities and also about the meanings and effects of colour. Well isn’t blogging just wonderful? You all tweeted it lots for me, you even gave me lots of lovely feedback about it. And then, as I wrote more and more posts those popular colour psychology posts slipped into the archives, only retrievable with a lot of digging.

Since colour psychology is so fundamental to everything that we do, and also to what I tend to post about on the blog, I thought it might be very helpful for you to have a quick reference to the Absolute Essentials of Colour Psychology with all the core detail in one place. And so without further ado, I present to you the series, grouped handily together into one category for your browsing.

You’ll always be able to access from the drop down menu at the top, and very soon Stu will also put a link in from the side. I hope that you enjoy!

Tagged as in Absolute Essentials of Colour Psychology, Colour Psychology

Note: I’m going to get a little bit techy here about colour psychology. Regular blog readers will be familiar with me talking about seasonal colour psychology personalities and the effect they have on the business. If you’re new to the concept of colour psychology you may like to read my Colour Psychology Absolute Essentials posts first.

I’m often asked by clients whether their own personality has any bearing on the colour psychology of their business. My stock, and immediate answer is no, it shouldn’t do. Colour psychology is about using colour (and texture, shape, type) to support the key brand messages of your business. We’re very analytical about identifying those core attributes and they are what drive our decisions about colour. But it’s not quite as simple as that.

Your personality will probably influence your business

In my experience, the vast majority of entrepreneurs shape their businesses in line with their own values. You may do this consciously or subconsciously, but experience tells me you’ll do it.

This often means that both business and business owner will share certain characteristics and attributes. And I think this is more prevalent, though not exclusively so, in small businesses.

Small businesses don’t always feel comfortable about showing their true “personalities” through their brand. And I think that’s a shame. By being aware of your core brand values and creating a brand identity that supports that, you’ll gain more profitable, loyal clients and differentiate your business from your competitors. It’s certainly a benefit we see time and again with our branding clients at Flourish.

But I digress. Let’s think big for a moment. Do you suppose Richard Branson eradicated his personality when setting up Virgin? Of course not! It’s his very drive, values and ambition that many of his customers find so utterly compelling. And that message is very aptly supported by the Winter colour palette: exciting, vibrant reds, luxurious and strong black.

So to scale back to small businesses. If small business owners are prepared to embrace the effect their own personality has on their business brand, then the chances are that your business colour psychology personality will be very similar to your own personality.

Your business colour psychology won’t be in line with your personal colour psychology because we want to please you, but most likely because my experience tells me it’s nigh on impossible to completely eradicate the influence of the business owner on their company, and that leaves a lasting, and positive, impression.

What do you think? Do you accentuate or dampen down your personality within your business?

Tagged as in Branding, Colour Psychology, Graphic Design, Logo Design

You know we love beautiful colour palettes – palettes that not only look great but that work together and powerfully communicate the message our client wants to. Well today I want to give you a bit of an insight into how we create these palettes. It’s easy to look at these harmonious palettes, all sparkling [...]

Tagged as in Branding, Colour Psychology, Logo Design

Powerful design enables you to connect with your ideal clients. It’ll help you attract, engage and seduce them into buying from you or working with you, and of course, it’s a wider thing than just design. It’s about your powerful design fitting into a powerful brand strategy. Next week I’ll be sharing with you how [...]

Tagged as , powerful branding, powerful design in Branding, Colour Psychology, Graphic Design

In my last post we looked at the heirarchy of design and I introduced the concept of powerful design. The idea that good design just isn’t enough. To truly flourish your design needs to connect with your audience. Now a good part of that comes down to really understanding the brief and the designer having [...]

Tagged as in Branding, Colour Psychology

Last week we sent twenty or so of our most loyal customers a small valentines gift to thank them for their loyalty. I handmade some very lovely bathmelts which we celophane wrapped, tied with a green velvet ribbon and enclosed a small note. In true valentines tradition we deliberately left off the Flourish name and [...]

Tagged as in Branding, Colour Psychology, Flourish Stuff, Graphic Design, Logo Design, The Flourish Identity

Brown is my black. I love it’s earthy, substantialness and it’s subtle calming effect when used in lighter shades. Brown feels natural, grounded, stable and reliable. There isn’t much that’s flighty or unreliable about brown is there? If used in the right proportion brown can feel balanced (I love to combine it with green or [...]

Tagged as in Absolute Essentials of Colour Psychology, Branding, Colour Psychology

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Tagged as in Absolute Essentials of Colour Psychology, Branding, Colour Psychology

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Tagged as in Absolute Essentials of Colour Psychology, Branding, Colour Psychology