Colours
DIY Branding ①
✧ 5 min read ✦
People who ☯︎ “do the work” ☯︎ when it comes to their branding reap the benefits (read: sales, traffic, generally being inspiring). Worst case? You don’t do it yourself, but you at least understand wtf your hired design help is talking about.
Ok ⏤ Let’s do this ✓
We’re starting with a fun one:
Your colour palette ☻ Most people feel pretty strongly about this stuff. Usually, it’s “I’m a minimalist, I don’t really like colour” 〰 or 〰 “I’m *obsessed* with this shade lime green and I just wanna find something that goes with it”.
Onward! ↓
① The dream palette generator
My ✿ favourite ✿ website to use for understanding the colours I’m drawn to is Khroma.co ☞ - it’s an AI based tool for designers. It’s very fun, just keep selecting the colours you like until it has enough to show you lots of combinations it thinks you’ll love:
② Reconsider black and white… please?
You may have noticed I’m not a huge fan of black and white, it’s ⚠︎ harsh ⚠︎ on the eye, and I much prefer shades of very dark grey and off whites. Even if monochrome is your choice - make a point deciding your hex codes for each!
③ Don’t deviate from your palette!
Profesh brands are ★ aesthetically consistent ★ and there’s no reason as a small business that you can’t be, too. Time is usually the enemy of the solopreneur, so I’ve seen many a website and Instagram feed go to sh*t from not taking the extra 20 seconds to locate your hex code and use it. Keep them handy!
If you chose shades of dark grey, cream and lilac, never deviate from them! Don’t be lazy and keep something black instead of your #333333 grey because it’s “close enough”. K? Ok. Cool.
④ Pull a palette from like, anywhere
Look through the bazillion screenshots on your phone or your Pinterest boards - odds are, there’ll be something in there that ✦ lights up ✦ your brain.
You can use Photoshop, Canva or even an app like PicsArt to drop the photo in there and use the eye droppper tool to see the exact colours in the picture.
Write the hex codes somewhere, screenshot or whatever you need to do to see the colours at a glance. Voila!
Again, even if you’re planning a very gentle palette of blacks, creams and whites ⏤ identify them exactly.
*+:｡.｡Bonus points｡.｡:+* for naming your colours.
⑤ Get inspired
Sometimes the best thing to do is save ❉ all the things ❉ that your eyes love and see them at a glance. Not sure where to start? See my Pinterest board for colour #inspo:
Next up:
Fonts! Seeya then.
S.O.S: Help me, Katie
If you’re feeling out of your depth when it comes to branding, your website, or bringing it all together, my 1:1 options may help: