Color Branding and Corporate Identity

Color is a very important factor in design can be quite significant in defining the identity or branding of a company. Companies use colors to brand their products so that we are reminded of the product simply by recognizing a combination of colors. Not only these large companies but many designers and small companies use colors to identify themselves to stand out. Here are some examples of websites where the color contributes to the company’s identity:

Apple

Apple has always been known for their use of silver, both in their products and their advertising. The Apple website clearly displays this by the use of a silver gradient navigation, and light grays and white for the rest of the site. With their common use of silver computer casing, Apple has indeed branded themselves with the color silver. Apple also uses bright colors for some of their product lines, including the iMac and iPod shuffle/nano.

(For an interesting article documenting the change in Apple’s design between 1977 and 2008 click here)

Nintendo

Nintendo has always defined themselves with the color of their current system. When the GameCube was released, it used an Indigo purple color which defined Nintendo. Now with Nintendo’s white Wii, the Nintendo website uses a lot of white with light shades of blue to symbolize the blue disc light that flashes whenever your Wii receives a message. The navigation on the site has a light blue glow for a rollover to further emphasize that.

Sprint

Sprint’s use of yellow and black reflect the yellow in their logo and their prominent use of black in their marketing. While most of the site is black, the selected navigation is yellow to match the logo. While most cell phone companies go for lighter color schemes, Sprint creates a nice contrast between the bright yellow and black. Their logo looks especially fitting on black phones.

eBay

eBay uses colors in a subtle way in order to make their logo stand out. They use all the colors present in their logo: red, blue, yellow, and green (mainly primary colors). The site consists of light yellow for navigation, red and green as highlighters, and blue for text.

As you can see, the use of color is very important in defining a company’s identity, and the closer the use of color relates to the brand, the more easily recognizable the company will become.

Tags: apple, attractive websites, brand, color, corporate, Design, design success, ebay, enhance your site, Marketing, nintendo, sprint

2 Comments to Color Branding and Corporate Identity

1. 

   Good job on the article Jeff
Erjon on February 3rd, 2009

2. [...] View o­rig­inal­ here:  Co­l­o­r Bra­ndi­ng a­nd Co­rpo­ra­te I­denti&#173… [...]
Color Branding and Corporate Identity | Eri Design Blog on February 4th, 2009

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