How to choose brand colours that hold up

In Australia. In Australia, website accessibility falls under the Disability Discrimination Act, so text contrast is a compliance question as well as a design one.

How our templates handle colour

Palettes per template	4 to 6
Colour values in the guidelines	HEX, RGB, CMYK
CMYK values	a conversion from RGB, stated as a starting point for your printer
Colour versions of the logo	4: full colour, reversed, single colour, greyscale

Palettes rarely fail because the colours are ugly. They fail because nobody checked them at favicon size, on newsprint, or against a fluorescent vest.

How do you choose brand colours?

Assign roles first, and only then pick a colour for each one.

• Dominant. The colour people will name when describing your business.
• Supporting. One or two colours that sit with the dominant without competing.
• Accent. Used on perhaps five percent of any layout, on the thing you want clicked or read.
• Text. A near black rather than pure black. Pure black on white is harsh on screen and rare in print.
• Background. An off white or a warm neutral. Pure white is a choice, not a default.

When every colour is equally saturated, nothing leads, and every layout becomes a decision. Colours differing in weight is what makes a palette usable by a non designer.

What contrast ratio do brand colours need?

Body text needs a contrast ratio of at least 4.5 to 1 against its background, and large text at least 3 to 1, under the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The guidelines' own explanation of the rule gives large text as about 24px, or 18.5px in bold.

This is worth caring about for two reasons. Some of your visitors have a colour vision deficiency, and many are reading on a phone outdoors. And in Australia, accessibility obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act apply to websites, so it is not purely a design question.

A pale grey on white, or a mid tone yellow on white, will fail. Both are common in brand work and both become a problem the moment they are used for text rather than decoration.

If you change the colours in one of our templates, check the new text and background pairs yourself. The editor does not stop you choosing a low contrast pair.

How do you check colours work at small sizes?

Shrink the logo to 32 pixels wide and look at it: if two colours merge into one shape, they are too close in lightness. Your logo will appear as a browser tab favicon at 16 pixels, as an app icon, and as a small round avatar. Colours that read as distinct at full size collapse into each other at that scale. Two mid tone colours of similar lightness are the usual casualty: they look like a two colour mark on a business card and like a single muddy shape on a phone.

The check takes a minute. Shrink the logo to 32 pixels wide on screen and look at it. If it turns into a blob, the problem is lightness, not hue, and the fix is to widen the gap between the light and dark elements.

Does your logo work in one colour?

Convert the palette to greyscale to find out, because at some point your logo will be reproduced in a single colour: a stamp, an embroidered shirt, an etched window, a fax quality PDF, a newspaper listing. Convert the palette to greyscale and look at whether the design still holds together. If two colours become the same grey, they were carrying information that a single colour reproduction destroys.

Why do brand colours look different in print?

Screens emit light and paper reflects it, so some colours cannot survive the trip to print.

• Bright blues and vivid greens sit outside the CMYK gamut and print noticeably duller than they look on a monitor.
• Neons and fluorescents cannot be produced in CMYK at all. They need spot inks, which costs more per run.
• Large flat colour areas show banding and inconsistency across a print run more than broken up areas do.
• Uncoated stock absorbs ink and prints everything a little darker and softer than coated stock. The same file on two papers produces two visibly different results.

If a specific colour is central to your identity, and you will be printing regularly, look at a physical Pantone swatch under daylight rather than choosing from a screen. A monitor is a lit sign and it flatters everything.

Where should you test a palette before committing?

Test it against the places it will appear: a uniform, food, a competitor's shelf, a vehicle and a screen at night.

• On a high visibility vest or work uniform, for trades.
• Against food, for hospitality. Blue is rare in food branding because very little food is blue.
• Next to competitors on a shelf or in a search results page.
• On a vehicle, where the paint colour of the vehicle becomes part of the palette whether you planned it or not.
• On a screen at night, where a bright white background reads as glare.

Should brand colours follow industry conventions?

Following them is the safe choice, and breaking them works when the rest of the business supports the difference. Categories develop colour conventions for practical reasons. Medical and allied health lean blue and green because they read as calm and clean. Trades lean high contrast and saturated because the artwork has to be legible on a moving vehicle. Legal and financial lean dark and restrained because they are selling seriousness. Beauty leans soft and low contrast because the work is about surfaces.

Breaking the convention is a legitimate way to stand out, and it works when the rest of the business supports the claim. It fails when the colour is the only thing that is different, because then it reads as a mistake rather than a position.

What is a quick check for a brand palette?

Run these six checks, most of which take a minute each.

1. Assign roles before picking colours.
2. Check every text and background pair reaches 4.5 to 1.
3. View the logo at 32 pixels.
4. Convert to greyscale and confirm it still works.
5. Look at it against the real context: uniform, vehicle, shelf, competitor.
6. If print matters, check a physical swatch rather than a screen.

Common questions

How many colours should a brand have?

Three to five with defined roles: one dominant, one or two supporting, one accent used sparingly, plus a near black for text and an off white for backgrounds. Palettes fail when every colour is equally strong and nothing leads.

What contrast ratio do brand colours need?

At least 4.5 to 1 between text and its background for body text, and 3 to 1 for large text of about 24px and above. This comes from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and in Australia website accessibility falls under the Disability Discrimination Act.

Why does my brand colour look different when printed?

Screens emit light and paper reflects it, and CMYK ink cannot reproduce the most saturated colours a monitor can display. Bright blues and vivid greens are the usual casualties. Uncoated paper also absorbs ink and prints darker and softer than coated stock.

Should I use pure black for text?

Usually not. Pure black on pure white is harsh on screen and uncommon in print. A near black gives the same authority with less glare. Small black text in print should still be set in black ink alone, because a black built from all four inks shows registration fringing at small sizes.

How do I check if my logo works at small sizes?

Shrink it to 32 pixels wide on screen and look at it. If the elements merge into one shape, the problem is that your colours are too close in lightness rather than in hue, and the fix is to widen that gap.