The Power of Color and Font in Logos
When you’re shopping and choosing between one product and another, what influences your choice? The color, brand, founder, ingredients, all of the above? Whether it’s consciously or subconsciously, the color and font of a logo or brand play a psychological role in our decision making when purchasing goods or services. This is the first in a series of blogs where we break down different elements of successful brands.
We are starting with color theory and font. Color theory is the idea that people associate colors with emotions and experiences. While everyone doesn’t have the same experiences, marketers have still been able to generally categorize colors based on the emotions they elicit. For example, blue is associated with trust, while purple can signify royalty. Color theory is often used by businesses when deciding what colors they want to make their logo or brand.
Fonts are similar to colors, business choose the font for their businesses logo based on what they are trying to convey about their brand. What font you choose helps you foster brand identity, stand out from competitors, and cultivate connections with consumers engage with your brand. Generally, we talk about fonts in two families, serif and san serif. Fonts named “serif” fonts, tend to be more traditional and look better for print materials, think of the fonts used on The New York Times logo. San serifs, or “without serif” are cleaner, modern and do well in digital use. You may have heard of the most famous, san serif font, Helvetica since you may have seen some memes or social media video about Helvetica. While we recommend one font for your logo, the use of a serif and a san serif font for your overall brand is a considered a best practices as this will give your brand more flexibility.
Here are some of our favorite logos and brand based on their use of colors and fonts.
Glossier: Pink: associated with femininity, calmness, and intuition. White: associated with purity, cleanliness, and innocence. Glossier focuses on less is more, do what makes you feel best makeup and skincare. This is represented in their pale pink and white color choice. Font: straight to the point like their brand, they don’t have products with no purpose just for the point of selling you something and their font helps highlight that
Prada: Black: associated with power and prestige, that's why almost every luxury brand logo is black and white. Being an original fashion house black is the perfect color for Prada, it gives a classic, luxurious, and prestigious feel. Font: timeless and easily readable while still having an interesting edge to it, just like the brand. It’s recognizable as “their” font against competing brands which fosters authenticity and a relationship with consumers
Coca-Cola: Red: associated with bold, exciting, energetic. Having the can be bright red is eye catching and interesting, also incredibly recognizable. Coke is now known for this shade of red, you can google “coke red” or “Coca-Cola red” and get dozens of swatches of this color. They’ve incredibly successfully built an association with this color and their brand. Font: Like their color, their font is custom, only associated with their brand. Their font is supposed to feel classic to remind consumers how long Coca-Cola has existed, since it’s one of the oldest soft drinks companies.
NBC: Everyone recognizes the iconic rainbow logo of the television network, but have you ever considered why they chose to incorporate so many colors into their logo? NBC was one of the first networks to stream all their programs in color. During this era, at the end of the evening once there was nothing else on TV, colorful, rainbow lines would run down the television screen which signaled the programs were done. The rainbow colors in their logo are supposed to represent this point in time when NBC was doing something revolutionary by having color tv, while also having an element of nostalgia by tying in the lines that would run down your screen. They also chose a peacock to sit at the center to have the rainbow of color television represented in the birds tail. Font: NBC uses Sweet Sans, a font related to the classic Sans Serif, it’s intention is to give a classic, established feel like Sans Serif does, while being slightly more fun which is a nod to the diverse array of programs they air.
T-Mobile: Known for their iconic (and trademarked!) magenta, T-Mobile has a logo that stands out. In color theory, magenta is supposed to invoke feelings of welcomeness, creativity, harmony, friendliness, and love in consumers. This is important for a cellphone company! You don’t want consumers to dread having to come into your stores and talk to your employees. Having a logo that can make them feel more at ease subconsciously from the start is a great way to prevent that. Cellphones also help people connect and stay in touch with people they love like friends and family, which is represented in the magenta. Font: T-Mobile uses Times New Roman, which has historical connections to communications networks like newspapers and magazines. This is a great choice for a company whose entire purpose is helping people communicate with each other. When you see this font you don’t only think about the brand but also larger networks of communication!
These were just a few examples of how brands have successfully harnessed color theory and font choice to create recognizable, successful brands. If you or your business need help creating a logo that makes sense for your area of expertise, consider contacting us for a marketing consultation today to see how we can help you build your brand!