How to choose the wrong brand color

We all have some toxic habits, don't we? Even when we know better, we still tend to follow those bad habits, maybe to shake things up a bit. One of my toxic traits was getting obsessed over a color irl and then imitating that in my brand coloring thinking that it’s a flex to do so. 

This is the story of that.

So... Did I tell you about the time when I introduced lavender into my brand color palette? No, but you remember? Honestly, that was a mistake.

And here’s the story of choosing the wrong brand color.

Step one of choosing the wrong brand color: Make the decision based on a trend

I had seen lavender everywhere and when you see something alllll the time and everywhere, looking cute, it will grow on you and start to seem like something * you* love. (feel familiar?)

This happened to me with lavender a while back. I saw it everywhere (you probably did too lol), loved it in a few very particular shades and started feeling the urge to introduce it as one of my brand colors, ignoring the fact that it did not fit in well with my established brand color palette at all. 

Sometimes a feeling just takes a hold on you, right?

Step two: Make the decision blindly 

Here’s what I was up to with case lavender: I kinda liked it and thought I needed to introduce a fresh element to my brand, so I was excited about the candy-color prospect. Consciously ignoring the red flag arising from my computer screen signaling me ‘girl, are you seriously about to ignore all of your own branding methods with this one?’

And look, a lot of times I will give my a vote for brand colors that will surprise your audience. But it has to happen in an outside the box, industry-leader-style and in a unique way. (Not like this.)

But if *the only * reasoning behind a brand color choice is a) you love it personally or b) it’s just a surprising element, there is a big chance it will fall flat.

Because, well you know this, but basing a branding decision on a fleeting feeling or a personal preference, rather that actual client analysis is risky. Kinda like coin-toss, throwing the color in the air not knowing which side will be up when it lands, yay or nay.

Step three: Pick a color based on an internet picture

Totally what happened in case lavender, too. It originated very much from the internet.

Because ‘hello! This is Pinterest, have we met?’ Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Pinterest. And I love when clients share me their boards to show me what moves them.

But hey, an individual photo as a reference driving brand color choices is usually not a great idea. For one, a color will probably look different in different surroundings (the overall brand color palette) and two, the photo of branding / home / product is likely only appealing to a certain niche of people. And * your brand colors * are best chosen to flatter your dream clients, not just any people, right?

I knew better than this, but somehow managed to convince myself otherwise…

Step four: Ignore your doubts

Days go by, spent in brand design for clients, wrapped in their worlds, loving the unique color stories we were building for them. (I distinctly remember one of them was inspired by Australian nature, filled with sandy beach colors and deep greens. Love.)

And any time I remembered the color palette of SH unraveling in that one very particular folder in my cloud documents, I always felt uneasy.

But I always pushed the feeling aside, dedicated to go ahead with this lavender madness.

So I’d narrowed the lavender shade down to 5 hex-codes (=the code that forms the color on a screen, #something). I'd open my Figma file of SH content graphic templates and feel the excitement of rolling new color options in irl.

Butterflies in my stomach, very conciously convincing myself that it’s the excitement causing them, not my anxciety about possibly having spent hours doing something that will prove not to be the right move. 

As it happened, the new color needed some new graphic elements to make the point. So I created those, too. 

The process took a lot of time, countless cups of tea (which I accidentally spilled all over myself once) and was pretty tiring tbh. I fell un-interested with this new color mid-process but debated myself on whether I could to let myself quit. 'I’ve come this far, why stop here', right?

After I finished the job, I immediately started to introduce the new look to my audience, first in social media, as an experiment.

The road to recovery: Back to the drawing board

After the initial enthusiasm, the doubts I had hidden from myself, and the live experiment, came regret.

I felt like I wanted to hide from this new cotton candy direction that I had driven SH into. I was pretty sure it was a mistake now.

I honestly had to be reminded of how it’s done: always from the ground up! 

I had tried to take the fast lane, when branding is not a speed race. It is not making individual choices and cramming them together. No, branding is about the whole. Details that make the whole which makes sense as the big picture.

So I went back to square one, and to where I always start with my clients. I started mood boarding. 

The road to recovery: focus on the ambience

And so I did what we do with our clients and dreamed up how I want my brand to look and feel. Oh, and I tested more than a few new colors.

Sure, I mourned the hours lost on case lavender, but the only thing to do is pivot and keep moving forward.

For Studio Huomenta, the overall ambiance at it’s core is welcoming, calm and warm. There’s layers and horizontal forms like in 1970’s architecture, with a nod to modern editorial style. 

In giving myself permission to really visualize and dream, I’ve already learned the pattern I’m always drawn to for SH is strong focus in typography in weights, sizes and italics, and a mix of calm colors from very close to each other, contrasting strongly with each other in depth.

Naturally, eventually, the new edition of our color palette took form. It is loved by our audience, easy on the eyes and giving a signature vibe, and feels so good to me every day.

We had to take the longer scenic route to get here, but it was beautiful and worth the trip!

Does your brand colour/s feel wrong somehow?

First of all: It’s not all lost! Not even if you do introduced a weird color and eventually decided to archive it. It’s life, honey.

But doing that multiple times probably won’t portray you in the most reliable light, and will probably annoy you more and more each round.

So next time you feel the need to re-do your color palette, try asking yourself:

• Is [the color / shade in question] something that has *really* felt like a good idea for [your brand] for a long time now?

• How do you think your audience would interpret it?

• Is it something you will probably be ready to stick with for longer?

• Who / what has influenced this color choice?

And hey, you might be sat there thinking colors are not that big of a deal. I get it! But when you reflect on yourself as a consumer, you'll probably start to notice how much the emotions that brands evoke drive your decisions. One of the factors behind those feelings is color. It has beenresearched that using a signature color can cause an 80% increase in a consumer’s recognition of your brand.

Choosing that color carefully is a hella good idea.

Annika Välimäki-Pinta
Studio Huomenta, Founder, Lead Designer