#Color
How many colors does a brand need?
Two colors run out by the third week of posts. How a palette is built from main colors, supporting colors, tints and neutrals, and how many is enough.
The logo usually gets two colors, and it's tempting to stop there. Then the posts start. Week one looks great. By week three every post is navy with a gold line, and scrolling through the feed looks like the same post four times.
What does a brand palette include?
A working palette has layers, each with a different job.
| Layer | How many | Its job |
|---|---|---|
| Main colors | 1 to 3 | The colors people remember. Usually in the logo. |
| Supporting colors | 2 to 4 | Backgrounds, bands, icons and highlights that keep posts varied. |
| Tints | A light and a dark of most colors | More options without new hues. Dark ones often carry text. |
| Neutrals | 2 or 3 | Text, off-white grounds, lines. The quiet majority of any layout. |
Put together, that can be eight core colors with a light and dark of most of them, and it still reads as one brand because every hue was chosen next to the others.
Why isn't two colors enough?
Two colors can make a strong logo. They make a thin system. Every layout has only two moves: dark on light, or light on dark. When you need to tell a sale post from an event post from a quote, there's nothing left to change.
A wider set of grounds fixes that. A brand I worked on added roses, plums and a few blues around its main color so a month of posts wouldn't look like one post. The feed looks varied and still clearly belongs to the same business.
Can a brand have too many colors?
Yes. Past a point, every piece picks a different combination and nothing looks related. The fix isn't fewer colors so much as rules: which ones lead, which ones only appear small, and which pairs are allowed together. A palette with approved pairings can be large and still hold together, which is what the contrast post gets into.
How are brand colors chosen?
Not from a trend report. In my process the questionnaire comes first, and the answers decide the direction: who the business serves, what the category around it looks like, what the owner wants to avoid. A wellness practice doesn't have to be beige and sage just because the category is. A consultancy doesn't have to be navy.
Then the palette gets tested in real use:
- On a post, a slide and a printed piece, at actual size.
- For contrast, so text colors pass.
- Next to photos. Brand colors sit next to faces, food and landscapes, and some combinations fight. A good guide includes a page on balancing brand colors against real photos.
- In print, so the CMYK versions stay close to the screen ones. More in why your brand color has three codes.
It often takes a few rounds. On one project, two early combinations were dropped, the next one swapped a yellow for teal and a burnt orange, and the one after that replaced the orange with a light teal. That became the palette in the guide.
What about the 60-30-10 rule?
It's a useful starting point: roughly 60 percent of a layout in a dominant color (usually a neutral), 30 percent in a secondary color, 10 percent in an accent. It keeps the accent special. A guide can say something similar in plain words, such as "the orange appears small, once per post."
Questions people also ask
How many colors should a logo have?
Usually one to three. The logo has to work in a single color too, so a mark that depends on five colors to make sense will struggle on a rubber stamp, an embroidered shirt or a one-color print job.
What is the 60-30-10 rule?
A rule of thumb for balance: about 60 percent of a layout in a dominant, usually neutral color, 30 percent in a secondary color and 10 percent in an accent. It's a starting point, not a law.
What's the difference between a tint and a new color?
A tint is a lighter or darker version of a color already in the palette. It gives more options without adding a new hue, so everything still reads as the same brand.
Should my brand colors be unusual?
They should be specific. A category full of navy and teal is easier to stand out in with a color nobody nearby uses, as long as it still suits the business and prints well.
