Colour is perhaps the most subjective of human senses, since no two people respond to colour exactly the same way. It is a visual sensation that affects each of us differently. We are excited, smoothen angered or pleased at both conscious and subconscious levels by colours we see around us. Out ethnicity and cultural backgrounds also influence the way we respond to colour. With the emergence of integrated marketing and branding communications, a designers scope of activities has vastly diversified and consequently a branding project is far more than just a logo exercise, and involves critical colour decisions at every stage involving a variety of applications.
It is a huge debate across cultures everywhere, people who want to preserve ethnicity which is a great thing and then there are those who work in the global context, which is very necessary today because we are open to all influences…s ort of ethnic-global. Asian countries are now economically very strong and colour follows money, that’s when we do trends, there is a rising pride in asian nations in their own cultures. We are more getting very comfortable with our ethnicity… we are ok to be Indian today. All trends follow the money because truly its business that is putting in money.
There is another case for maintaining cultural and ethnic colour, because the younger generation is very proud of it. They are cool being India that’s really the catch phase.
Colour only has two aspects: social change and technological advancement. There is also this whole concept of colour familiarity, its almost with everything, once you hear music of a particular kind, it begins to dawn upon you, you eat new food, they become familiar to you. For instance this whole coffee culture of sitting in an aromatic environment with kids, you know, being with your friends has also made brown acceptable to younger people. Before brown would sell like a khaki or mitti, but not as an expensive luxury colour.
The brand is the visual identity of the activities and everything that a company stands for in the geographies it operates in. Brand activities may relate to how you want to be locally present or globally present. Apart from standard print applications like brochures, the brand colours get translated to anything – from their logo, products, livery, t-shirts for events, office interiors, their fleet of their trucks… everything! By and large, identities were designed the purposes of visibility. They are still needed for visibility. There is a huge change in colour in sunlight versus colour in interiors. The colours that may work for visibility on a tall building cannot translate to interiors and retail design.
High chroma is what we need for visibility, but as we enter the retail space we need to be trendy and use a different colour palette and modulate the palette direction. You need to get the words right before you get the content and product right, eg: grocery branding, an association of green with fresh.
Colour is not about likes or dislikes, its more to do with profits, we are in business and companies want profit through colour. So the real question is “will this colour increase my profitability?” is this colour going to reduce my inventory and SKU? is it going to fly off my shelves? Will it do much for my brand equity and image? All these matter.
Colour designer acts like a surgeon, if I am ill I will medicate myself. But if I am seriously ill, I will need a physician or a surgeon to doc much more.
A paint company known for the best luxurious flat- world paint would call us in to prepare a special effect paint or even to evolve the marketing strategy for the year. What we would say is that we are doing rooms for kids because parents are willing to spend anything on kids these days. We created visualization for children, and what is appropriate for children and how they should address the children’s needs. This gave them a leg and a entry into homes, which they didn’t have earlier. How to take brand values and convert them into products and 3D spaces in terms of colour….. it is not about doing identity or a logo. You have a business plan? You have a marketing plan? What is your colour plan?
