Colour is one of the most powerful — and most misunderstood — tools in a brand designer’s toolkit. The right palette can communicate your brand’s personality before a single word is read. The wrong one can quietly undermine everything else you have built.
When I start a branding project, colour selection is always a strategic conversation, not an aesthetic one. I ask clients: what emotions do you want people to feel when they encounter your brand? What do your competitors look like, and where do you want to stand in relation to them?
In the tech startup world, there is a tendency to default to blues and greens — colours associated with trust, technology, and innovation. But this also means that a lot of tech brands look alike. Sometimes the boldest move is to go in a completely different direction. A startup that chooses a confident orange or a deep, rich purple immediately signals confidence and originality.
Beyond the primary brand colour, I always build out a full palette: a primary colour, one or two secondary colours, and a set of neutral tones for backgrounds and text. This gives the brand flexibility across different contexts while maintaining consistency. A well-chosen colour system is something your team can use confidently across every design decision for years to come.