Color is a powerful communicator in website design, advertising and branding. Sometimes a color is selected for the sole purpose of drawing attention to the product or ad. Color will also produce memorable ads for branding. The best colors for advertising are those that make people comfortable or stimulate their senses. Color effects and directs the decision making process of the customer. It identifies a company, its product lines and the quality of the merchandise.

It’s quite well known that the color red inspires impulsive buying. Our eyes are drawn to the color like bees are to honey. A color scheme that incorporates warm colors encourages people to linger, leading restaurants to choose deep burgundy, burnt orange and similar colors. Bright red and yellow are hot colors, indicative of fire, and they stimulate excitement. We talked before about how color communicates in web design

Building Sign Example
Here is a good example about how color communicates in a building sign. Earlier this year we moved to new offices and I asked one of my new designers to create a design for our new sign. When I saw the design, I was less than impressed. It was technically correct, but it lacked the attention getting element.

The designer thought white would make the text stand out. So we decided to give it a try and see what would happen. I went ahead and had his design made into 4 foot by 5 foot street signs. The result… after 3 months we had no drop in traffic and even clients driving to our office would miss our sign. It just blended in too much.

New Signs
I went back to one of my long time designers and asked for a memorable and eye-catching design. I wanted a colorful design that used our branding colors that we use on our website and business cards. She soon came back with a design that I loved. It was full of color and grabbed your attention. We had new signs made up and put up. The result… within the first week we had two walk in prospects and one very promising phone lead. Wow… what a difference color can make.

Colors are more than a combination of red and blue or yellow and black. They are non-verbal communication. Colors create a physical reaction and are a key part of branding for your business

Doug Williams, Internet marketing consultant

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 17th, 2007 at 6:27 am and is filed under Business Consulting, Success Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.