It’s been several years since I have been helping bakeries and its owners to create branding and logos. And there is one thing that I have realized, In this competitive market each and every factor which can give your brand, even a little advantage can drive your business towards rapid success. People don’t just go to a specific brand for just the products, they do it due to the whole journey and the experience they get out of it, The overall sales also depends upon the feelings and emotions, that they have associated to that specific brand. That is the reason that all the big brands don’t just choose any colour randomly for their branding but it is done after they have done the market research and target audience study.
One way to influence emotion and behaviour of your customer is through colour associations and effects of certain colours on the mind, like some colours generate the sense of urgency, movement and some colours makes you calm. So you should be aware of the colour that you are using for your branding because that might work for or against your business growth.
So, to find the best colour for a bakery logo you need to keep an account of various factors such as your target audience, its gender, age, your product or service, brand values and nature of business etc. to choose a colour can be a little more tricky than you think it is, to give you one helpful advice then you can use some bright colours if your bakery is selling cakes and desserts because those colours can encourage the customers to eat or try your product, it can also create urgency for your product, and if it is for bread then you can also go for light or the pastel shades of colours. Usually what bright colours do is they get attention easily and some colours like red or dark pink can directly tickle your food fancy. It can have a tendency to trigger the appetite to enhance your metabolism etc. Colours are more than just something that would make something look great. It can help your product to sell more or it can also drive your customers away.
I am going to give you a brief description of the colours and the psychology behind it so that you can decide what colour might work best for you.
Black:
Black can be very bold and it can also showcase your brand as a sophisticated and elegant which obviously cannot be a bad thing, there is a reason most of the people prefer a black luxury car over vibrant colours and most of the luxury brands associate their brand with the black colour more often.
This colour also indicates power, strength, confidence and authority which might help your brand to get the trust and credibility. It is easy to trust black over jolly bright colours.
If you want to make your brand to be sophisticated, luxurious and elegant black is your colour.
black can also have a negative impact if it wouldn’t be used smartly since the colour also has some negative associations to evil, death and mourning.
White:
White is the colour that stands for cleanliness, trust, innocence and purity.
It can add a touch of freshness to your logo but make sure too much white can look a bit unfriendly, sterile and incomplete.
This colour can be used to add contrast to your logo and provide it with a more balanced visual.
Red:
Red is the colour of love. This colour creates a sense of urgency that is the reason these colours have been used in direct sales. This colour It also raises your heartbeat and gets the attention quickly at even the long distances. So, you can imagine how visible your brand can be if the correct application of this colour is done in your logo. This colour is also for energy, excitement, stimulating appetite and hunger.
It can also stand for being powerful, energetic and excitement that can be used to get your audience excited for your product and it can be useful to make the overall experience your customer unique.
It can give your brand a character of love, warmth and comfort.
Orange:
This colour can help your logo to stand out. Also, it is bright and playful, it can be friendly and inviting to your customers.
This colour is a combination of Red and Yellow. It is also considered to be an energetic colour. This colour fills your brand with enthusiasm and happiness. This colour can draw attention very easily.
It can also add freshness to the logo but make sure it is not a dull shade of orange. One more thing if you consider the brand to be more pop and fresh you should consider keeping this colour in the palette.
This colour anchors a feeling of warmth, it is a colour of the warm rising sun in the sky.
Yellow:
This one is a delicious colour, you would see many restaurant and fast food logos using this colour. This one is also a symbol of cheer and happiness. If you want to make your logo stand out and visible within the shades of colours this colour is going to be your companion in making it happen.
It is a joyous and radiant colour, it will fill your logo with a fresh feel. It signifies communication, spirituality, sunlight and spirituality. It can result in increased mental activity, energy and awareness. But you need to use it in a way that it won’t be able to communicate it’s bad values like caution, cowardice, deception and anxiety. It has a negative side as well.
Gold:
It is a colour that exudes authority, and it emits luxury. This colour might communicate that the brand can be dependable for its value because it is the colour which stands for royalty and have a strong sense of right and wrong.
You can use this colour but always remember that your brand would have to resonate with its values accurately otherwise you might lose the trust of your customers if your brand is nothing like what your logo communicates.
Blue:
This colour exudes intelligence, confidence and serenity but it is not at all an emotional colour there won’t be any emotional value in this colour and there won’t be any feeling that your customer would be able to associate with this colour. If that is what your brand stands for, like being professional and all business and no emotions then it is fine otherwise you would have to pair this colour with a colour that can help your customer to associate some emotional value with your brand. You need to be really careful while using this colour especially if you are a bakery brand or a food brand because this colour is slightly unappetizing.
Green:
It is a colour filled with aliveness. But this colour can be associated very easily with eco or natural product.
This colour fills people with positive energy and also it gives a recharged feeling to the onlooker that’s also one of the reasons that you feel fresh when you are around plants. In a chromatic therapy green is the colour which is used to calm and soothes the mind and soul.
Brown:
Pink: This is the colour of feminity which means more in touch with the emotional side of the personality. It also communicates love and romance but rather than a passionate love for which red stands pink stands for tender/gentle love and care. This can give your logo a modern look with a touch of youthfulness. It can also have a calming effect on people.
This colour can also exude optimism and also gentle confidence.
Violet/ Purple:
This colour communicates luxury, ambition and power, It is also a colour of imagination and creativity. This colour is a balance between Blue and Red, so this colour would stand for all the properties these two colours stand for and that too in a perfect balance.
Bright purple can be a colour of royalty as well.
Magenta:
This colour is the colour of universal harmony and emotional balance. It influences our whole personal and spiritual development. Also strengthens intuition and psychic abilities. It helps us to experience a greater level of awareness and knowledge while rising above the everyday drama, that’s why this colour is the instrument of change and transformation which can help us to grow.
This colour can also help us to be happy and cheerful and it can be uplifting during times of sadness, anger and frustration.
This can fuel your free spirit. It can push you to take a different road and take responsibility to create your own path by fueling your creative brain.
But when thinking of using this colour in your brand identity you need to pair it with a different colour which complements it otherwise it can be too overwhelming.
One final advice when you are sitting down to decide which colour you finally want to go with for your branding. You need to sit and decide what are the values that your business stands on and what is the nature of your business that you would like to bring forth to your customers. And after deciding those values see which colour resonates with those values in the best way.
Good luck with finding your business’s true colour/ colours. Share in comments on what colour suits your business in the best way and why. It might be helpful for people who want to find the perfect colours for their business branding.
