I'm having a rough time with this so I was just curious to see what people did to pick out their branding colors.

Did you pay attention to other local photographers when you picked out your colors, as to not mimic your "competition"? (I use competition loosely because I know a lot of us don't think of each other that way )

Did you pay attention to other brands in your market? Such as if you're a high end photographer did you try to mimic other high end brands, like high end clothing, etc.?

List up your thought process when it came to picking out your branding colors. I look forward to everyone's responses!!

bluntly - no, i dont care what any other photographer in my area uses, period.

i usually start off with my website colors since that is my main focal point. i've never hada template i could not change until now - so i had to pretty much focus in on those colors which is fine because i have started a whole new look.

Funny story... found a REALLY cool ribbon I decided to use on my business cards and packaging.... then based it off that. Random enough?

Really? I like a couple color combos but I'm kind of scared to go with them because they're too close to other photographers near me. I don't want to give off the impression that I'm copying them.




That's awesome! LOL

There are sooo many photographers out there you're bound to have a color someone else is using. There's only so many colors out there.


We wanted something modern and clean so our logo is different shades of gray, and then we agreed on yellow as our accent color. Nate wanted green or blue, I wanted pink, yellow was a good compromise.

I know you're always bound to have the same as someone, but if they're across country than your clients aren't likely to know or notice. But I wonder if clients might notice if two locals have the same or similar colors?

Kinda HAD to go with red, right? For me, it was a no brainer

Actually mine were inspired by an Old Navy bag from a few years ago. haha Plus I've always liked brown, blue and orange together.

dont be scared. you can turn them into your combo. look, there are only so many colors in the rainbow and only so many colour combos we can create, at some point, things are going to be similar.

At first I picked some colors I felt were a combo of a color I like AND things that would be .. general public friendly so originally my site blog etc was white, purple and gray.. But then I said screw it, and I changed to something which is more my personality and now it's black, hot pink and white. That's me.. So, in short, I picked what I like and what represents my personality.

Tami is right. There ARE only so many colors and so many color combinations. I have no doubt there are about five dozen photographers in the country that use black and hot pink. It's not the most original combination in the world. I would have gone with black and red which are my two favorite colors, however, that was a little TOO dark and serious IMO, so I thought the pink livened it up a bit.

I've always used green (pms 580 to be exact) & black for my logo and my branding. It's a bit harder now to design stuff and not have it "look like anyone else" because EVERYONE is "going green" now. But I try not to worry about what anyone else is doing and just focus on what's on my plate.

I say go with what you like and what "speaks to you".

T

i color matched my hair

I met Tiffany in the fall time and it's our favorite season, so I went with Orange. I also used to work for Home Depot, so Orange has always been with me.

LOVES IT!
I wish I could pull off red.

I'm a redhead and my business is called "red photo co." so ya, I pretty much went with that. I also really liked how red and pink went together and there you go!

i love bright colors - all of them - so I used them all : )

i originally had green, black and white. great color scheme...not so great for a photography website i soon found. ...so i decided that the only thing my brand could, and should represent was me. so i thought about all of the things that i like and ended up pulling my color scheme and actually the simplicity of the actually website design from one of my favorite magazine: real simple. ...i ended up using chocolate, pink, and cream. and to my sheer delight i have found that there are so many awesome photography related accessories that incorporate those colors. so now, my camera strap and camera bag match my brand colors.

Hi Misty,

I'm still working on this myself and I've been to several different branding/marketing classes. I was at one recently with K-Gallery out of Gainesville, FL. They are masters of design and color. They said to sit down and think of three words that you want to get across the feeling of in your brand/colors/logo/packaging, etc. Those words will portray certain color feelings. Well, it just so happened that when I did this, my current colors DID NOT portray the feelings that I wanted people associating with me or my business. So I'm in the process right now of having my new logo made. I wish you the best. But the one thing they also said was to choose and then be consistent!
T

My inspiration came from Nikon.

its just my favorite colour! my whole house is practically purple, I have a purple couch in the client room, all my client folders are purple, my scarf is purple......my bedspread is purple (not that clients see THAT ) my poor hubby has to put up with so mcuh purple.....




But i dont think id look any good with purple hair unfortunately..... maybe when im 60