Color — you love it or you hate it, or maybe you just don’t know what to do with it. And we get it. If you don’t come from the world of design, it can be hard to visualize, let alone vocalize, what colors you like or feel best represent your brand. So besides knowing you love blue (we know you do), you might feel a little lost when it comes to choosing your law firm’s brand colors.
But that’s OK, because that’s why we’re here. Read on to better understand our positive associations with brand colors, why you may gravitate towards certain colors in design and not others, and, of course, why so many law firms love the color blue.
The Positive Symbolism of Brand Colors in Legal Marketing
Whether you realize it or not, color has a big impact on your emotions and, in turn, your behavior and decision-making. In design, we call this color psychology, and designers leverage color psychology to influence a brand’s consumers. That’s why at Legal Media, we have clients take a brand quiz to uncover your firm’s strengths, psychological triggers and overarching persona. Deep, right?
While there are many shades, tints and variants when it comes to color, here’s a starting point for a high-level understanding of how brand colors can positively impact your law firm’s brand.
Blue: Like we mentioned, blue is very popular with lawyers. Trustworthy, dependable, secure, confident, logical, loyal — sound like adjectives you’d like someone to use to describe your law firm? Now you know why most do.
Red: Powerful, strong, fearless, energetic, passionate, intense — these are all emotions evoked by the bold color choice of red. Some lawyers find red very clearly represents their passionate and strong demeanor, especially in court, while some lawyers find the powerful energy of red to be too (for lack of a better word) intense.
Yellow: Yellow is, not surprisingly, the most cheerful of brand colors. It evokes an extroverted tone and is used to make consumers feel optimistic and happy. It’s not for everyone but perfect for some.
Orange: Like yellow, orange is warm and friendly but also takes on red’s courageous tone. Orange balances confidence and approachability in a way many brands hope to be perceived.
Green: When you see green you likely think healthy and natural. There’s a reason so many organic brands use it in their marketing! But green can also represent growth, prosperity and hope.
Purple: Purple represents luxuriousness, sophistication, wealth and wisdom, but can also be used to portray an imaginative or spiritual nature.
Black: Black is most often associated with elegance, authority, power and sophistication and is actually used by almost 50% of law firms in their brand color palette.
Putting Color Palettes Together
OK, so now that you know the positive associations consumers have with color, here are some ways designers pull palettes together. Designing aesthetically pleasing color combinations, also known as color harmony, is often based on colors’ geometric relationships on the color wheel. Remember those?
Here are some of the most common color palette schemes used by designers to achieve color harmony:
Monochromatic, which uses a single color in three varying tints and tones
Analogous, which uses related colors with one dominant color
Complementary, which uses two contrasting colors on opposite sides of the color wheel
Triadic, which uses three colors evenly spaced on the color wheel for high contrast
Tetradic, which uses four evenly spaced colors on the color wheel, with a dominant color
No idea what we’re talking about? Check out Canva’s color palette inspo.
Choosing Your Law Firm Brand Colors
Ready to discover your law firm’s brand colors? Brand makers, like us, utilize these color theory studies in branding and rebranding exercises by:
First, learning what the company wants to be known as (e.g., trustworthy, authoritative, caregiving, etc.)
Second, identifying the company’s goals and target markets
Third, developing a color scheme that will resonate with prospective clients based on findings in the first and second steps
Of course, there’s much more to it than that, but we can’t share all our secrets. If you’re interested in working with Legal Media Partners on your visual branding, reach out to us at info@legalmediapartners.com.
Want to learn more about brand development? Follow us on Instagram at @legal_media_partners for free legal marketing advice.
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