Brand color palettes

A brand palette has a harder job than a website one: it has to survive a logo at 16 pixels, a billboard, and a black-and-white fax. These twelve hold their shape at both ends.

Choosing a brand colour from a set

  • Pick one colour to own and two to support it. Brands are remembered by a single colour, not by five.
  • Check it in grey: convert the palette to greyscale and make sure the primary is still distinguishable from the secondary.
  • Decide the text colour that goes on the primary before you sign it off — a brand colour that cannot carry a legible label costs you every button.

The text colour under each palette is whichever of near-black or white reaches the higher contrast ratio against its first colour — check any other pairing before using it for body text.

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